These extra instructions allow ChatGPT to offer additional capabilities such as image generation and web browsing. However, it is at the expense of taking up previous token limit for the entire conversation, and affecting how ChatGPT responds to instructions given by the user.

Many people don't know that there is an alternative version of ChatGPT called "ChatGPT Classic" built by OpenAI that does not have the extra system prompt instructions, and it is offered as one of the official “GPTs” by OpenAI.

ChatGPT Classic uses GPT-4 in the backend, so it does not compromise on the model performance.

Link to ChatGPT Classic: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-YyyyMT9XH-chatgpt-classic

Or you can just find it in the "Explore GPTs" menu within ChatGPT.

There are two advantages of using ChatGPT Classic with less system prompt:

1. By reducing the system prompt, you can provide more context and instructions for the task without being cutoff by the token limit. This helps ChatGPT to provide more accurate and relevant code suggestions.

2. Less system prompt also means your instructions will not be affected by the extra instructions in the system prompt, so ChatGPT will be more likely to follow your instructions.

I have been able to empirically verify these advantages and it's been working well for generating production-quality code for my use cases.

I also have other best practices (specifically for using ChatGPT for coding) in my blog post:

https://16x.engineer/2024/02/03/chatgpt-coding-best-practices.html