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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

#171

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?

It's become very commonplace for there to be a dozen replies on viral posts where users all @grok to ask if the post is real or for more context. It's almost more work to compose a reply asking Grok about it than it is to just click the Grok button and it give you more context that way. I don't get it.

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

#172

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 found AI to be useful on precisely-scoped tasks I might assign to a junior programmer to take a day to do, like "convert this exact bash script to a Powershell script".

But in my own work, those tasks are pretty rare, like 3 times a month? Often I start working on something, and the scope and definition of success changes while I'm in the midst of it. Or it turns out to be harder than expected and it makes sense to timebox it and do a quick search for workarounds.

As much as we joke about StackOverflow commenters sometimes telling a question-asker they shouldn't be doing what they're trying to do, you do actually want that (soft) pushback some of the time. Most modern LLMs will gleefully come up with a complete plan for how we're gonna get the square peg in the round hole.

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

#173

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…

Some hints for people stuck like this: Consider using Aider. It's a great tool and cheaper to use than Code. Look at Aiders LLM leaderboard to figure out which LLMs to use. Use its architect mode (although you can get quite fast without it - I personally haven't needed it). Work incrementally. I use at least 3 branches. My main one, a dev one and a debug one. I develop on dev. When I encounter a bug I switch to debug…

The three-branch thing is so smart.

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

#174
I used GitHub Copilot and Udemy to teach myself Rust. Copilot was especially helpful at resolving obtuse compiler error messages.

But as I’ve improved at Rust I have noticed I am using Copilot a lot less. For me now it has mainly become a tool for code completion. It’s not helping me solve problems now, it’s really just about saving time. I have estimated (unscientifically) that it probably improves my productivity 2-4x.

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

#175
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tha…

Have you tried using Cursor rules? [1] Creating a standard library stdlib with many (potentially thousands) of rules, and then iteratively adding to and amending the rules as you go, is one of the best practices for successful AI coding. [1] https://docs.cursor.com/context/rules-for-ai

at that point aren't you just replacing regular programming with creating the thousands of rules? I suppose the rules are reusable so it might be a form of meta-programming or advanced codegen

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

#178

Are there any videos showing these very advanced use cases? I'd be interested in learning how to achieve this level of proficiency. At the moment I still feel I'm better off without ai

Claude code doesn’t need magic prompts. It’s not perfect but holy moly is it good, when it’s working it just one shots things for you. It’s just EXPENSIVE. I’ve spent 30$ in tokens on it this week. Cursor’s “chat with your codebase” is a funny joke compared to Claude Code. Ask it questions, have it figure things out. I had it analyze the openAPI schema and the backend that is serving the schema for the API I’m writin…

Use Aider to keep the costs low. You can explicitly tell it what files to use.

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

#179

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've got to do piecemeal validation steps yourself, especially for models like Sonnet 3.7 that tend to over-generate code and bury themselves in complexity. Windsurf seems to be onto something. Running Sonnet 3.7 in thinking mode will sometimes reveal bits and pieces about the prompts they're injecting when it mentions "ephemeral messages" reminding it about what files it recently visited. That's all external scaffolding and context built around the model to keep it on track.
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