Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

dmitrybrant.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 343 posts

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#141

Post by eisa01 »

I've used Claude Code in the past month to do development on CoMaps [1] using the 20 USD/month plan.

I've been able to do things that I would not have the competence for otherwise, as I do not have a formal software engineering background and my main expertise is writing python data processing scripts.

E.g., yesterday I fixed a bug [2] by having Claude compare the CarPlay and iOS search implementations. It did at first suggest another code change than the one that fixed it, but that felt just like a normal part of debugging (you may need to try different things)

Most of my contributions [3] have been enabled by Claude, and it's also been critical to identify where the code for certain things are located - it's a very powerful search in the code base

And it is just amazing if you need to write a simple python script to do something, e.g., in [4]

Now this would obviously not be possible if everyone used AI tools and no one knew the existing code base, so the future for real engineers and architects is bright!

[1] https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps [2] https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/pulls/1792 [3] https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/pulls?state=all&type=all&... [4] https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/pulls/1782

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#142

Post by mintflow »

When I was port fd.io vpp to apple platform for my App, there is code that's implement coroutine in inline ASM in a C file but not in Apple supported syntax, I have succesfully use Claude web interface to get the job done (Claude code was not yet released), though as like in this article, I have strong domain specific knowledge to provide a relevant prompt to the code.

Nowadays I heavily rely Claude Code to write code, I start a task by creating a design, then I write a bunch of prompt which cover the design details and detail requirements and interaction/interface with other compoments. So far so good, it boost the productivity much.

But I am really worrying or still not be able to believe this is the new norm of coding.

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#143

Post by lenkite »

zipzapzip wrote: post #111
kccqzy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is more of a reflection of how our profession has not meaningfully advanced. OP talks about boilerplate. You talk about grunt work. We now have AI to do these things for us. But why do such things need to exist in the first place? Why hasn't there been a minimal-boilerplate language and framework and programming environment? Why haven't we collectively emphasized the creation of new tools to reduce boilerplate a…

Because of the obsession with backwards compatibility and not breaking code. The web development industry is the prime example. HTML, Javascript, CSS, a backend frontend architecture - absolutely terrible stack.

I don't even know why things like templating and inclusion are not just part of the core web stack (ideally declaratively with no JS). There should be no need for an external tool or build process or third-party framework.

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#144

Post by andoando »

kccqzy wrote: post #30
bicx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good takeaway. I use Claude Code as my main approach for making changes to a codebase, and I’ve been doing so every day for months. I have a solid system I follow through trial and error, and overall it’s been a massive boon to my productivity and willingness to attempt larger experiments. One thing I love doing is developing a strong underlying data structure, schema, and internal API, then essentially hav…

This is more of a reflection of how our profession has not meaningfully advanced. OP talks about boilerplate. You talk about grunt work. We now have AI to do these things for us. But why do such things need to exist in the first place? Why hasn't there been a minimal-boilerplate language and framework and programming environment? Why haven't we collectively emphasized the creation of new tools to reduce boilerplate a…

Theres a million different million environments. This includes, OS, languages, frameworks and setups within those frameworks. Spring, java or kotlin, rest or grpc, mysql or postgres or, okhhtp or ktor, etc etc.

There is no software you could possibly write that works for everything thatd be as good as "Give me an internal dashboard with these features"

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#145

Post by ponector »

AdieuToLogic wrote: post #73
marcus_holmes wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Use these tools for rapid onboarding onto new frameworks. Also new languages - our team uses Ruby, and Ruby is easy to read, so I can skip learning the syntax and get the LLM to write the code. I have to make all the decisions, and guide it, but I don't need to learn Ruby to write acceptable-level code [0]. I get to be immediately productive in an unfamiliar environment, which is great. [0] acceptable-level as def…

>>> Use these tools for rapid onboarding onto new frameworks. > Also new languages - our team uses Ruby, and Ruby is easy to read, so I can skip learning the syntax and get the LLM to write the code. If Ruby is "easy to read" and assuming you know a similar programming language (such as Perl or Python), how difficult is it to learn Ruby and be able to write the code yourself? > ... but I don't need to learn Ruby to w…

That is what I observe at work: people who heavily use LLM in their coding don't read, review and test their code, pushing this work to teammates and testers.

Great skill multiplier, right?

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#146

Post by philjackson »

jama211 wrote: post #86
abathologist wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the glaring fallacy! We are turning to unreliable stochastic agents to churn out boilerplate and do toil that should just be abstracted or automated away by fully deterministic, reliably correct programs. This is, prima facie, a degenerative and wasteful way to develop software.

Saying boilerplate shouldn’t exist is like saying we shouldn’t need nails or screws if we just designed furniture to be cut perfectly as one piece from the tree. The response is “I mean, sure, that’d be great, not sure how you’ll actually accomplish that though”.

Great analogy. We've attempted to produce these systems and every time what emerges is software which makes easy things easy and hard things impossible.

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#147

Post by rmoriz »

baq wrote: post #124
rmoriz wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In times of Rust and Typescript (just examples) coding standards are explicit. It‘s not optional anymore. All my vibe coding projects are using CI with tests including style and type checks. The agent makes mistakes but it sees the failing tests and fixes it. If you vibe code like we did Perl and PHP in 1999 you‘re gonna have a bad time.

In a startup, especially early, the only thing that isn't optional is shipping. You can fix any and all issues later, first you have to ensure there is a 'later'. (That's not to say you shouldn't do it at all, but definitely focus on the business before the tech.)

I‘ve been with a couple of startups that shipped and not a single one was cutting corners in this area anymore. Last time I saw this was probably around 2005-2008.

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#148

Post by winterrdog »

yeasku wrote: post #57
anyfoo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you call what the author did shit? It is resurrecting an old tape driver for archival purposes. It may not have much commercial use, but anyone having those old tapes will appreciate it.

[flagged]

I think you should read to learn, instead.

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#149

Post by globular-toast »

I don't think we really need an article a day fawning over LLMs. This is what they do. Yep.

Only thing I got from this is nostalgia from the old PC with its internals sprawled out everywhere. I still use desktop PCs as much as I can. My main rig is almost ten years old and it's been upgraded countless times although is now essentially "maxed out". Thank god for PC gamers, otherwise I'm not sure we'd still have PCs at all.

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#150

Post by lukan »

tankenmate wrote: post #126
elzbardico wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. This is a fundamentally erroneous analogy. We don't generate code by a stochastic process.

I have a strong suspicion that the world is not as deterministic as you'd like it to be.

Or it is deterministic, but infinitely complex, so that also leaves us only with stochastic.
Post reply on HN