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Claudette: Make Claude stop talking like a BuzzFeed article

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Re: Claudette: Make Claude stop talking like a BuzzFeed article

#101

Post by jorl17 »

pluralmonad wrote: post #81
graemep wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claude not only writes verbose comments, it also writes comments about how things used to work when refactoring. That might have a place in version control comments, but not in the code.

And will reference transient working docs in code comments. // No retry was added here per AC 37b in FEATURE.MD.

// The lesson from the Parse-dont-fail-era campaign

// Judged on merit from computed properties during the cursor saga

// Chop 6ms due to lenience and lax-constraints vs 18ms baseline April perf measurements

Re: Claudette: Make Claude stop talking like a BuzzFeed article

#102

Post by transdev12 »

mmastrac wrote: post #14

I've started giving these instructions and I think I've been much more successful in generating clear output: Comment blocks are Limiting the number of words is the strongest factor in cleaning up the output, IMO. For older code I've instructed it to delete all the comments, and then I re-comment it using a new session and these guidelines, asking it to rejustify the need for every comment to itself.

The corollary here is to have Claude write tests to enforce this. The only thing it is consistently responsive to is test failures.

Re: Claudette: Make Claude stop talking like a BuzzFeed article

#103

Post by spooneybarger »

jorl17 wrote: post #100
graemep wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claude not only writes verbose comments, it also writes comments about how things used to work when refactoring. That might have a place in version control comments, but not in the code.

This! Claude writes comments about how things used to work, which can be useful sometimes, especially if it's a big change that requires one to genuinely consider legacy behavior, but most of the time it shouldn't be there. Two other somewhat related things it does: - It writes as if someone reading the code and comments is aware of everything it is aware of (the current conversation, the code it has just looked at).…

I've gone back to using Opus 4.6. It's quite nice along all these fronts.

Re: Claudette: Make Claude stop talking like a BuzzFeed article

#104

Post by nottorp »

mmastrac wrote: post #14

I've started giving these instructions and I think I've been much more successful in generating clear output: Comment blocks are Limiting the number of words is the strongest factor in cleaning up the output, IMO. For older code I've instructed it to delete all the comments, and then I re-comment it using a new session and these guidelines, asking it to rejustify the need for every comment to itself.

I just gave up and edit the comments manually. However, I've had a surprise today.

I had it fix something then went and reduced one of the 3 line comments to 4 words. Then for some reason I told the bot to reload the source, it offered to make the other comments terse and did a passable job of it. Shocking!

Now how to get it to do that all the time...

Re: Claudette: Make Claude stop talking like a BuzzFeed article

#106

Post by [deleted] »

mmastrac wrote: post #14

I've started giving these instructions and I think I've been much more successful in generating clear output: Comment blocks are Limiting the number of words is the strongest factor in cleaning up the output, IMO. For older code I've instructed it to delete all the comments, and then I re-comment it using a new session and these guidelines, asking it to rejustify the need for every comment to itself.

[deleted]

Re: Claudette: Make Claude stop talking like a BuzzFeed article

#107

Post by nchmy »

collingreen wrote: post #23
zengid wrote: post #6

this isn't just necessary, it's mandatory. that's the difference.

This is the load bearing comment, and it cuts more deeply than you thought. Let me ground my answer so I'm not just guessing. The blast radius of this change is significant and requires careful surgery to get right. It's clear now and there's two options going forward: A. Use this tool OP suggested B. Rewrite the Internet from the ground up without this clear contradiction in place - 3-5 days I recommend B and starte…

i havent used a claude model in a long time, but it seems quite clear to me that the chinese models have trained on claude (at the very least) - they write just the same

Re: Claudette: Make Claude stop talking like a BuzzFeed article

#109

Post by datsci_est_2015 »

jorl17 wrote: post #101
pluralmonad wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And will reference transient working docs in code comments. // No retry was added here per AC 37b in FEATURE.MD.

// The lesson from the Parse-dont-fail-era campaign // Judged on merit from computed properties during the cursor saga // Chop 6ms due to lenience and lax-constraints vs 18ms baseline April perf measurements

Thanks, this sequence of 33 words alone was enough to give me a searing migraine.

Re: Claudette: Make Claude stop talking like a BuzzFeed article

#110

Post by ErroneousBosh »

graemep wrote: post #76
mmastrac wrote: post #14

I've started giving these instructions and I think I've been much more successful in generating clear output: Comment blocks are Limiting the number of words is the strongest factor in cleaning up the output, IMO. For older code I've instructed it to delete all the comments, and then I re-comment it using a new session and these guidelines, asking it to rejustify the need for every comment to itself.

Claude not only writes verbose comments, it also writes comments about how things used to work when refactoring. That might have a place in version control comments, but not in the code.

Presumably you're not just blindly copying down what Claude copies out for you, but actually reading, interpreting, and understanding it for yourself?
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