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Claude Code is a slot machine

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Re: Claude Code is a slot machine

#51

Post by hakunin »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #25

> I became a software engineer because I loved the process of it. I could sit for hours, figuring out how to wire something up just so and get an idea made into something real. And it didn’t feel like work. It was just fun. Joyful. Satisfying. It's funny, because I do not like the process of software engineering at all! I like thinking through technical problems—how something should work given a set of constraints—an…

I've been noticing the pattern among the kind of people who like/dislike AI/agentic coding:

1) people who haven't programmed in a while for whatever reason (became executives, took a break from the industry, etc)

2) people who started programming in the last 15 or so years, which also corresponds with the time when programming became a desirable career for money/lifestyle/prestige (chosen out of not knowing what they want, rather than knowing)

3) people who never cared for programming itself, more into product-building

To make the distinction clear, here are example groups unlikely to like AI dev:

1) people who programmed for ~25 years (to this day)

2) people who genuinely enjoy the process of programming (regardless of when they started)

I'm not sure if I'm correct in this observation, and I'm not impugning anyone in the first groups.

Re: Claude Code is a slot machine

#52

Post by stillpointlab »

The irony is I alt-tabbed to HN to read this article after starting Claude Code on an implementation pass.

My usage of Claude Code sounds different to a lot of ways I hear people using it. I write medium detail task breakdowns with strict requirements and then get Claude to refine them. I review every single line of code methodically, attempting to catch every instance Claude missed a custom rule. I frequently need to fix up broken implementations, or propose complete refactors.

It is a totally different experience to any other dev experience I have had previously. Despite the effort that I have to put in, it gets the job done. A lot of the code written is better than equivalent code from junior engineers I have worked with in the past (or at worst, no worse).

Re: Claude Code is a slot machine

#53

Post by sokoloff »

esafak wrote: post #19
ggandhi wrote: post #13

Lovable, I feel, works at a higher abstraction layer. The unpredictability of whether my prompt will generate something delightful in that initial design creates an addictive slot machine dynamic. But would these tools lose their magic if the results became completely deterministic?

Nah, it would become actually useful. Companies are not going to keep paying for slot machines. There is a strong incentive to make them reliable.

Companies will rationally stop paying for slot machines that pay out $0.90 for every $1 wagered, but they’ll happily pay for slot machines that pay out $5 for every $1 wagered.

Which will be the case is the interesting question.

Re: Claude Code is a slot machine

#55

Post by sokoloff »

varispeed wrote: post #47

> I could sit for hours, figuring out how to wire something up just so and get an idea made into something real. And it didn’t feel like work. That's why developers are poorly paid and viewed as disposable cogs. It feels "easy" to many people and so they internally think it is immoral to get paid and corporations ruthlessly prey on that feeling. Reality is that development is hard and requires immense mental work, co…

TIL that “developers are poorly paid”.

Re: Claude Code is a slot machine

#56

Post by jonator »

For me the fun part of coding is having visions of products or systems I'd like to exist, and writing code only as a means to an end.

Claude Code (AI coding agents/assistants) are perhaps the best thing to happen to my programming career. Up until this point, the constraint going from vision to reality has always been the tedious process of typing out code and unit tests or spending time tweaking the structure/algorithm of some unimportant subset of the system. At a high level, it's the mental labor of making thousands of small (but necessary) decisions.

Now, I work alongside Claude to fast track the manifestation of my vision. It completely automates away the small exhaustive decision making (what should I name this variable, where should I put this function, I can refactor this function in a better way, etc). Further, sometimes it comes up with ideas that are even better than what I had in my head initially, resulting in a higher quality output than I could have achieved on my own. It has an amazing breadth of knowledge about programming, it is always available, and it never gives up.

With AI in general, I have questions around the social implications of such a system. But, without a doubt, it's delivering extreme value to the world of software, and will only continue the acceleration of demand for new software.

The cost of software will also go down, even though net more opportunities will be uncovered. I'm excited to see software revolutionize the under represented fields, such as schools, trades, government, finance, etc. We don't need another delivery app, despite how lucrative they can be.

Re: Claude Code is a slot machine

#57

Post by Wowfunhappy »

hakunin wrote: post #51
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #25

> I became a software engineer because I loved the process of it. I could sit for hours, figuring out how to wire something up just so and get an idea made into something real. And it didn’t feel like work. It was just fun. Joyful. Satisfying. It's funny, because I do not like the process of software engineering at all! I like thinking through technical problems—how something should work given a set of constraints—an…

I've been noticing the pattern among the kind of people who like/dislike AI/agentic coding: 1) people who haven't programmed in a while for whatever reason (became executives, took a break from the industry, etc) 2) people who started programming in the last 15 or so years, which also corresponds with the time when programming became a desirable career for money/lifestyle/prestige (chosen out of not knowing what they…

Just for background, I will say I'm not a programmer—I used to work at a web design agency where I did coding as part of my job, and now I'm an elementary school teacher of all things. I never wanted to be a software engineer explicitly because I don't like writing code!

But I've been using Claude non-stop this summer on personal projects and I just love the experience!

Re: Claude Code is a slot machine

#58

Post by cmrdporcupine »

The tool is insanely powerful, but Anthropic needs to build a more interactive structure into the tool. Just "accept this diff or not" is not ideal.

If you prompt it correctly and rigidly, and review everything it does large or small, it's a 10x tool for grinding through some very hard problems very quickly.

But it can very easily lead you into overconfidence and bloat. And it can "cheat" without you even realizing it.

Claude Code is best used as an augmentation, not automation tool. And it's best that the tool makers and investors realize that and stop pretending they're going to replace programmers with things like this.

They only work well when combined with a skilled programmer who can properly direct and sift through the results. What they do allow is the ability to focus on higher level thinking and problems and let the tool help you get there.

Re: Claude Code is a slot machine

#59

Post by micahscopes »

Disposal8433 wrote: post #11
itsthecourier wrote: post #2

my time coding with Claude has been the most joyful experience in my 25 years of coding. I have delivered many pet projects I always wanted to build and now focus in the operation of them. no moment in my coding life has been this productive and enlightening. pretty often I sit down to read how the ai solved the issue and learn new techniques and tools. studying a paper, discussing it with Opus, back and forth, takin…

It's nice that you have all those wonderful experiences with LLMs. But for once in your life, could you show us the code? Because you look like yet another cheerleader that have nothing to show, and it's annoying.

No code to share yet, but results nonetheless.

Tabu search guided graph layout:

https://bsky.app/profile/micahscopes.bsky.social/post/3luh4s...

https://bsky.app/profile/micahscopes.bsky.social/post/3luh4d...

Fast Gaussian blue noise with wgpu:

https://bsky.app/profile/micahscopes.bsky.social/post/3ls3bz...

In both these examples, I leaned on Claude to set up the boilerplate, the GUI, etc, which gave me more mental budget for playing with the challenging aspects of the problem. For example, the tabu graph layout is inspired by several papers, but I was able to iterate really quickly with claude on new ideas from my own creative imagination with the problem. A few of them actually turned out really well.

Sometimes I'll admit that I do treat Claude like a slot machine, just shooting for luck. But in the end that's more trouble than it's worth.

The most fruitful approach is to maintain a solid understanding of what's happening and guide it the whole way. Ask it to prove that it's doing what it says it's doing by writing tests and using debug statements. Channel it toward double checking its own work. Challenge it.

Another thing that worked really well the other day was to use Claude to rewrite some old JavaScript libraries I hand wrote a few years ago in rust. Those kinds of things aren't slot machine problems. Claude code nails that kind of thing consistently.

Ah, one more huge success with code: https://github.com/micahscopes/radix_immutable

I took an existing MIT licensed prefix tree crate and had Claude+Gemini rewrite it to support immutable quickly comparable views. In about one day's work. I scoured the prefix tree libraries available in rust, as well as the various existing immutable collections libraries and found that nothing like this existed. This implementation has decently comprehensive tests and benchmarks.

One more I'll share, an embarrassing failure: https://github.com/micahscopes/splice-weaver-mcp

I used vibe kanban like a slot machine and ended up with a messy MCP server that doesn't really do anything useful that I can tell. Mostly because I didn't have a clear vision when I went into it.

Re: Claude Code is a slot machine

#60

Post by Jgrubb »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #25

> I became a software engineer because I loved the process of it. I could sit for hours, figuring out how to wire something up just so and get an idea made into something real. And it didn’t feel like work. It was just fun. Joyful. Satisfying. It's funny, because I do not like the process of software engineering at all! I like thinking through technical problems—how something should work given a set of constraints—an…

100% with you. I thought I loved writing code until a few months ago when I was able to tell an LLM exactly how I wanted it done, exactly the structure and the goals for today. I realized that I love getting stuff done and that writing code was the price I had to pay in terms of my time.
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