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I've been using Claude Code for a couple of days

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Re: I've been using Claude Code for a couple of days

#41

Post by ido »

egorfine wrote: post #30
develoopest wrote: post #4

I must be the dumbest "prompt engineer" ever, each time I ask an AI to fix or even worse, create something from scratch it rarely returns the right answer and when asked for modification it will struggle even more. All the incredible performance and success stories always come from these Twitter posts, I do find value in asking simple but tedious task like a small refactor or generate commands, but this "AI takes the…

You have to learn and figure out how to prompt it. My experience with Claude Code is this: one time it produces an incredible result; another time it's an utter failure. There are prompt tips and tricks which have enormous influence on the end result.

Can you give us some of these tips?

Re: I've been using Claude Code for a couple of days

#42

Post by pydry »

beezlewax wrote: post #34
abxyz wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's probably the difference between "code" and "programming". An LLM can produce code and if you're willing to surrender to the LLMs version of whatever it is you ask for, then you can have a great and productive time. If you're opinionated about programming, LLMs fall short. Most people (software engineers, developers, whatever) are not "programmers" they're "coders" which is why they have a positive impres…

I'm waiting for artisan programming to become a thing.

Artisanal code has been a thing for a long while.

If we're the luddite artisans, LLMs seem to represent the knitting frames which replaced their higher quality work with vastly cheaper, far crappier merchandise. There is a historical rhyme here.

Re: I've been using Claude Code for a couple of days

#44

Post by fullstackwife »

develoopest wrote: post #4

I must be the dumbest "prompt engineer" ever, each time I ask an AI to fix or even worse, create something from scratch it rarely returns the right answer and when asked for modification it will struggle even more. All the incredible performance and success stories always come from these Twitter posts, I do find value in asking simple but tedious task like a small refactor or generate commands, but this "AI takes the…

"wild", "insane" keywords usually are a good filter for marketing spam.

Re: I've been using Claude Code for a couple of days

#45

Post by smallerfish »

develoopest wrote: post #4

I must be the dumbest "prompt engineer" ever, each time I ask an AI to fix or even worse, create something from scratch it rarely returns the right answer and when asked for modification it will struggle even more. All the incredible performance and success stories always come from these Twitter posts, I do find value in asking simple but tedious task like a small refactor or generate commands, but this "AI takes the…

I've done code interviews with hundreds of candidates recently. The difference between those who are using LLMs effectively and those who are not is stark. I honestly think engineers who think like OP are going to get left behind. Take a weekend to work on getting your head around this by building a personal project (or learning a new language).

A few things to note:

a) Use the "Projects" feature in Claude web. The context makes a significant amount of difference in the output. Curate what it has in the context; prune out old versions of files and replace them. This is annoying UX, yes, but it'll give you results.

b) Use the project prompt to customize the response. E.g. I usually tell it not to give me redundant code that I already have. (Claude can otherwise be overly helpful and go on long riffs spitting out related code, quickly burning through your usage credits).

c) If the initial result doesn't work, give it feedback and tell it what's broken (build messages, descriptions of behavior, etc).

d) It's not perfect. Don't give up if you don't get perfection.

Re: I've been using Claude Code for a couple of days

#46

Post by ReptileMan »

pydry wrote: post #42
beezlewax wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm waiting for artisan programming to become a thing.

Artisanal code has been a thing for a long while. If we're the luddite artisans, LLMs seem to represent the knitting frames which replaced their higher quality work with vastly cheaper, far crappier merchandise. There is a historical rhyme here.

You didn't had to spend time debugging a peace of cloth, and the cloth defects are obvious

Re: I've been using Claude Code for a couple of days

#47

Post by ramblerman »

KeplerBoy wrote: post #35

The comment "@grok can you summarize" kills me. This post is like 200 words and takes a minute to read. Is this the direction we (or some of us) are headed?

lol - I thought the same, but the charitable take after looking at the user's profile is that he is a journalist, and not tech savvy.

So I understand his request as more along the lines of, can you explain this in a way that I understand it. For which summarization is the wrong phrasing.

ie.. It seems trivial on hacker news, but that post would be pure giberish for most of our parents.

Re: I've been using Claude Code for a couple of days

#48

Post by delusional »

rs186 wrote: post #40

A single tweet with lots of analogy, with no screenshot/screen recording/code examples whatsoever. These are just words. Are we just discussing programming based on vibe?

It's influencer culture. It's like when people watch those "software developer" youtubers and pretend it's educational. It's reality television for computer people.

Re: I've been using Claude Code for a couple of days

#49

Post by jmull »

abxyz wrote: post #26
develoopest wrote: post #4

I must be the dumbest "prompt engineer" ever, each time I ask an AI to fix or even worse, create something from scratch it rarely returns the right answer and when asked for modification it will struggle even more. All the incredible performance and success stories always come from these Twitter posts, I do find value in asking simple but tedious task like a small refactor or generate commands, but this "AI takes the…

I think it's probably the difference between "code" and "programming". An LLM can produce code and if you're willing to surrender to the LLMs version of whatever it is you ask for, then you can have a great and productive time. If you're opinionated about programming, LLMs fall short. Most people (software engineers, developers, whatever) are not "programmers" they're "coders" which is why they have a positive impres…

All I really care about is the end result and, so far, LLMs are nice for code completion, but basically useless for anything else.

They write as much code as you want, and it often sorta works, but it’s a bug filled mess. It’s painstaking work to fix everything, on part with writing it yourself. Now, you can just leave it as-is, but what’s the use of releasing software that crappy?

I suppose it’s a revolution for that in-house crapware company IT groups create and foist on everyone who works there. But the software isn’t better, it just takes a day rather than 6 months (or 2 years or 5 years) to create. Come to think of it, it may not be useful for that either… I think the end-purpose is probably some kind of brag for the IT manger/exec, and once people realize how little effort is involved it won’t serve that purpose.

Re: I've been using Claude Code for a couple of days

#50

Post by egorfine »

ido wrote: post #41
egorfine wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to learn and figure out how to prompt it. My experience with Claude Code is this: one time it produces an incredible result; another time it's an utter failure. There are prompt tips and tricks which have enormous influence on the end result.

Can you give us some of these tips?

Not that I have anything concrete in my mind yet. I'm learning as we all do. But after some usage I've developed a little bit of a hunch which prompt works and which not.

For example, I have mindlessly asked Claude Code over a large codebase "where is desktop app version stored and how is it presented on site". I have expected useless answer given how vague the questions was. Instead I have got a truly exceptional and extremely clear report that fully covers the question.

Another example. I have asked Claude Code to come up with a script to figure out funding rate time intervals on a given exchange and Code ended up in an almost endless loop running small test scripts in node.js to figure this out and came up with a super suboptimal and complicated solution. Turns out my prompt was too verbose and detailed and I have specifically asked Claude Code to figure out time intervals, not just get them. So it did. Instead of just querying the exchange via API and printing the list on terminal (3 lines script) it actually, truly tried to figure them out in various ways.

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