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Discussion on: Prompt Engineering Is a Symptom (And That’s Okay)

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David G

I mostly agree with your framing, but I think you’re underselling something important: prompt engineering is architecture—just at the human↔model boundary. Yes, it exposes ambiguity, but designing constraints, interfaces, and failure modes at that boundary is real engineering work. We don’t dismiss API design because it’s “just middleware.” The fact that it looks like text doesn’t make it less structural.

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Art light

Great point—prompt engineering is architectural work at the human–model boundary, shaping constraints, interfaces, and failure modes much like API design does. Treating it as “just text” misses how much system behavior and reliability are determined by that layer.