> Any shared sense of rigour is just completely torpedoed by the LLM world

Consider that this shared sense of rigour you have in mind is illusory, and LLMs and their context struggles are simply revealing this. I see precious little rigour in any of the 'tech' world I've lived in for decades. The tools proliferate, paradigms emerge and die and reemerge, and whatever stick you consider using to measure any of it has competitors with different units. Past the physics of power and signaling, and the prevailing cost of a silicon wafer, we are almost all, relative to a small number of much older disciplines, muddlers of various degrees of skill.

I've found dealing with context limits relatively easy: specify and confine. LLMs need clear specifications and strong guidance to produce good work.

But that's just my current muddling take on the practice. Perhaps, 90 days from now, even this burden will be gone, and a simple prompt will generate world class operating systems, programming languages and a formal basis in mathematics for both.