Item — HN Reader

Is it just me, or does the README have the ChatGPT accent? For instance:

  Whether you're looking to replicate your hometown, explore urban environments, or simply build something unique and realistic, Arnis offers a comprehensive toolset to achieve your vision.

I don’t have a lot of issues with people using LLMs to generate documentation, but it does seem to have a lot of nothing-sentences.

4 comments

ChatGPT sounds like that because that's what vapid feel-good corporate copy reads like, and there are mountains of it churned out by humans.

A legitimate question for me would be is documentation made to be read or to be written and what is the appropriate trade-off in energy invested? I might write a one off email to an individual, a email to a big audience or a presentation to the board. All three get different levels of attention. From little, to there are layers to this text nobody would expect (perhaps mostly for my enjoyment).

You’re right, and this is unfortunately becoming very common on GitHub, even for otherwise great projects.

Good technical writing is concise and tells you what you need to know as directly as possible. ChatGPT written documentation always reads like bad marketing copy.

On the other hand you can prompt it to be more concise, use simpler words, etc.

I asked ChatGPT for a concise version and this is what it did:

"Arnis generates Minecraft worlds based on real-world locations. Select an area to recreate cities, landmarks, and landscapes in the game."

So overall it's up to the person to decide how it should look like.

It seems everybody is LLM-suspicious these days, but keep in mind humans had mastered the art of nonsense long before!

How would you phrase it?

Arnis uses OpenStreetMap data and Rust to generate Minecraft worlds based on real-world geography and architecture.

It processes large-scale data to create accurate cities, landmarks, and natural features in Minecraft, making it easy to replicate real places or design realistic environments.

(This rephrasing generated by ChatGPT)

This is actually really good.

For one, it's not a "comprehensive toolset" (focus on toolSET) - it's one tool with one config option.

That sentence just doesn't need to exist at all. The nature of the tool is already covered. I don't think there's a reason to tell people that they could use it for this, that, or the other thing.

Build your ideal city with Arnis.