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

Claude Code is a slot machine

rgoldfinger.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 303 posts

Re: Claude Code is a slot machine

#61

Post by Wowfunhappy »

jonator wrote: post #56

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/algori…

> and it never gives up.

Not to impede your overall point, but have you not encountered a situation where Claude gives up? I definitely have, it'll say something like "Given X, Y and Z, your options are [a bunch of things that do not literally but might as well amount to 'go outside and touch grass']."

Re: Claude Code is a slot machine

#62

Post by svantana »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #29

That headline really resonates as I spent many years in Las Vegas. LLMs in general have very slot machine like qualities. WHen they “pay off” they are great.

Oh great, together we are two datapoints that reinforce the OP's hypothesis. I have a strong distaste for gambling in all forms and I don't enjoy using opaque, unreliable text generators either.

Re: Claude Code is a slot machine

#64

Post by garciasn »

jonator wrote: post #56

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/algori…

I see AI-accelerated codegen as doing all of the boring shit I hated:

do while error == true;

Write code

Run code

Read error

Attempt to fix error

Run code

Read error

Search Google for error

Attempt to fix error

Run code

Read error

done

---

Claude does all of this for me now, allowing me to concentrate on the end goal, not the minutiae. It hasn't at all changed my workflow; it just does all of the horribly mundane parts of it for me.

I like it and I recommend it to those who are willing to admit that their jobs aren't all sunshine and roses until the product is shipped and we can sit back and get to work on the next nightmare.

Re: Claude Code is a slot machine

#65

Post by [deleted] »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #61
jonator wrote: post #56

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/algori…

> and it never gives up. Not to impede your overall point, but have you not encountered a situation where Claude gives up? I definitely have, it'll say something like "Given X, Y and Z, your options are [a bunch of things that do not literally but might as well amount to 'go outside and touch grass']."

[deleted]

Re: Claude Code is a slot machine

#66

Post by Ekaros »

sokoloff wrote: post #53
esafak wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

At this point I am doubtful about calling companies rational actors in many many cases. So probably they play both machines. And it is somewhat luck which they hit and some maybe have rational leaders.

Re: Claude Code is a slot machine

#67

Post by b_e_n_t_o_n »

shortrounddev2 wrote: post #38
b_e_n_t_o_n wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I let it write boilerplate, or other low impact stuff like html/css. It worked nicely converting Svelte components from Svelte 4 to 5 for example. And AI autocomplete has been a genuine productivity win although not without the occasional subtle bug. But I can't imagine trusting it for an entire codebase. If you're letting the AI write your code you're not thinking about it deeply enough to critique it imo. Which is…

I stopped using copilot because it kept writing really bad c++. It's great at python and Javascript. This was a year or so ago so maybe its better now

I used it to learn C++ but that was for basic stuff. Even I could tell when it started to go off the rails.

I wonder if some of the disconnect between the AI coding fans and skeptics is just the language they're writing.

Re: Claude Code is a slot machine

#68

Post by radicalbyte »

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…

I've been coding for 35 years and I've grown to hate it. Most of the work is boring. The things I absolutely loved doing, they require focus, and focus is something I just don't get to have at this point in my life (young kids) and career (if I'm focused I'm neglecting my responsibilities).

I've found AI to be a useful tool when using a new library (as long as the version is 2 years old) and in the limited use I've made of agents I can see the potential but also the dangers in wrong + eager hands.

Re: Claude Code is a slot machine

#69

Post by sergiotapia »

Anyone else kind of lose the high of solving a difficult problem since LLMs became the workflow?

You still have to really guide the AI, none of this is automatic. Yet I no longer feel the mega joys I once felt hand building something and watching it work correctly. The thrill is gone! Don't know if this is good or bad yet. I don't miss the plumbing bullshit. I do miss the joy.

Re: Claude Code is a slot machine

#70

Post by danielbln »

troupo wrote: post #45
gonzalohm wrote: post #42

My experience with AI seems to be totally different than for most people. As an example, the other day asks chatgpt to write a configuration file for SQL fluff that formatted the code as an example that I provided. It proceeded to invent all the SQL fluff rules. And the ones that were actual rules were useless for the actual format that I wanted. I get it, SQLFluff rules are really confusing, but that's why I asked f…

> My experience with AI seems to be totally different than for most people. It's not different from most people. Everyone runs into AI bullshit. However, hype and new tech optimism overrides everything.

Or, you know, there are different ways of using these tools. Slapping something into ChatGPT is one way, though maybe not the most efficient way of getting value out of these tools.
Post reply on HN