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Issue: Claude Code is unusable for complex engineering tasks with Feb updates

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Re: Issue: Claude Code is unusable for complex engineering tasks with Feb updates

#291

Post by vecter »

bcherny wrote: post #243
DennisL123 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happy to have my mind changed, yet I am not 100% convinced closing the issue as completed captures the feedback.

From the contents of the issue, this seems like a fairly clear default effort issue. Would love your input if there's something specific that you think is unaddressed.

From this reply, it seems that it has nothing to do with `/effort`: https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/42796#issue...

I hope you take this seriously. I'm considering moving my company off of Claude Code immediately.

Closing the GH issue without first engaging with the OP is just a slap in the face, especially given how much hard work they've done on your behalf.

Re: Issue: Claude Code is unusable for complex engineering tasks with Feb updates

#292

Post by satvikpendem »

rileymichael wrote: post #213
jatins wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but could not recreate for a good hour. For certain work, we'll have to let go of this desire. If you limit yourself to whatever you can recreate, then you are effectively limiting the work you can produce to what you know.

you should limit your output (manual or assisted) to a level that is well under your understanding ceiling. Kernighan’s Law states that debugging is twice as hard as writing. how do you ever intend on debugging something you can’t even write?

It's simple, they'll just let the LLM debug it!

This is why I believe the need for actually good engineers will never go away because LLMs will never be perfect.

Re: Issue: Claude Code is unusable for complex engineering tasks with Feb updates

#293

Post by whateveracct »

rubicon33 wrote: post #86
ex-aws-dude wrote: post #36

Its so silly everyone being dependent on a black box like this

You will literally build nothing but the most primitive of devices unless you accept black boxes. In fact I'd argue its one of humanities great strengths that we can build on top of the tools others have built, without having to understand them at the same level it took to develop them.

I have been able to build plenty of stuff with a pretty plain emacs + ghci for years...neither are black boxes. Except maybe my brain driving them.

Re: Issue: Claude Code is unusable for complex engineering tasks with Feb updates

#294

Post by skippyboxedhero »

randomNumber7 wrote: post #182
skippyboxedhero wrote: post #170

I appreciate the work done here. Been having this feeling that things have got worse recently but didn't think it could be model related. The most frustrating aspect recently (I have learned and accepted that Claude produces bad code and probably always did, mea culpa) is the non-compliance. Claude is racing away doing its own thing, fixing things i didn't ask, saying the things it broke are nothing to do with it, et…

> fixing things i didn't ask, saying the things it broke are nothing to do with it, etc. Quite unpleasant to work with. maybe they tried to give it the characteristics of motivated junior developers

classic :D i did think when i wrote that maybe AGI is already here, definitely worked with enough devs like that

Re: Issue: Claude Code is unusable for complex engineering tasks with Feb updates

#295

Post by JamesSwift »

Multiple people on our team independently have noticed a _significant_ drop in quality and intelligence on opus 4.6 the past few weeks. Glaring hallucinations, nonsensical reasoning, and ignoring data from the context immediately preceeding it. Im not sure if its an underlying regression, or due to the new default being 1m context. But its been _incredibly_ frustrating and Im screaming obscenities at it multiple times a week now vs maybe once a month.

Re: Issue: Claude Code is unusable for complex engineering tasks with Feb updates

#297

Post by JohnMakin »

bcherny wrote: post #209

Hey all, Boris from the Claude Code team here. I just responded on the issue, and cross-posting here for input. --- Hi, thanks for the detailed analysis. Before I keep going, I wanted to say I appreciate the depth of thinking & care that went into this. There's a lot here, I will try to break it down a bit. These are the two core things happening: > `redact-thinking-2026-02-12` This beta header hides thinking from th…

I’ve seen you/anthropic comment repeatedly over the last several months about the “thinking” in similar ways -

“most users dont look at it” (how do you know this?)

“our product team felt it was too visually noisy”

etc etc. But every time something like this is stated, your power users (people here for the most part) state that this is dead wrong. I know you are repeating the corporate line here, but it’s bs.

Re: Issue: Claude Code is unusable for complex engineering tasks with Feb updates

#298

Post by stephbook »

fer wrote: post #64

Called it 10 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47533297#47540633 Something worse than a bad model is an inconsistent model. One can't gauge to what extent to trust the output, even for the simplest instructions, hence everything must be reviewed with intensity which is exhausting. I jumped on Max because it was worth it but I guess I'll have to cancel this garbage.

One of the replies even called out the phased rollout, lmao https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47533297#47541078

Re: Issue: Claude Code is unusable for complex engineering tasks with Feb updates

#299

Post by satvikpendem »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #141
ambicapter wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First time interacting with a corporation in America?

With an AI corporation, yes. I subscribed during the promotional 2x usage period. Anthropic's reputation as a more ethical alternative to OpenAI factored heavily in that decision. I'm very disappointed.

Ethics don't mean anything when talking about corporations. Their good guy persona is itself a marketing stunt.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47633396#47635060

Re: Issue: Claude Code is unusable for complex engineering tasks with Feb updates

#300

Post by koverstreet »

ai_slop_hater wrote: post #271
koverstreet wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically speaking, models inherently do this - CoT is just output tokens that aren't included in the final response because they're enclosed in tags, and it's the model that decides when to close the tag. You can add a bias to make it more or less likely for a model to generate a particular token, and that's how budgets work, but it's always going to be better in the long run to let the model make that decision en…

> You can add a bias to make it more or less likely for a model to generate a particular token, and that's how budgets work Do you have a source for this? I am interested in learning more about how this works.

It's how temperature/top_p/top_k work. Anthropic also just put out a paper where they were doing a much more advanced version of this, mapping out functional states within the modern and steering with that.
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