Earlier quoted context omitted.
How much did this type of project cost you to make?
What kind of costs are you thinking?
money
A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks
811–820 of 870 posts
Re: A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks
#812> LLM coding will split up engineers based on those who primarily liked coding and those who primarily liked building. I’ve always said I’m a builder even though I’ve also enjoyed programming (but for an outcome, never for the sake of the code) This perfectly sums up what I’ve been observing between people like me (builders) who are ecstatic about this new world and programmers who talk about the craft of programming…
> > LLM coding will split up engineers based on those who primarily liked coding and those who primarily liked building. > I’ve always said I’m a builder even though I’ve also enjoyed programming (but for an outcome, never for the sake of the code) > This perfectly sums up what I’ve been observing between people like me (builders) who are ecstatic about this new world and programmers who talk about the craft of progr…
I prefer engineering too, I tried management and I hated it.
It's just the level of engineering we're split on. I like the type of engineering where I figure out the flow of data, maybe the data structures and how they move through the system.
Writing the code to do that is the most boring part of my job. The LLM does it now. I _know_ how to do it, I just don't want to.
It all boils down to communication in a way. Can you communicate what you want in a way others (in this case a language model) understands? And the parts you can't communicate in a human language, can you use tools to define those (linters, formatters, editorconfig)?
I've done all that with actual humans for ... a decade? So applying the exact same thing to a machine is weirdly more efficient, it doesn't complain about the way I like to have my curly braces - it just copies the defined style. With humans I've found out that using impersonal tooling to inspect code style and flaws has a lot less friction than complaining about it in PR reviews. If the CI computer says no, people don't complain, they fix it.
Re: A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks
#813Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you ever work with LLMs you know that they quite frequently give up. Sometimes it's a // TODO: implement logic or a "this feature would require extensive logic and changes to the existing codebase". Sometimes they just declare their work done. Ignoring failing tests and builds. You can nudge them to keep going but I often feel like, when they behave like this, they are at their limit of what they can achieve.
If I tell it to implement something it will sometimes declare their work done before it's done. But if I give Claude Code a verifiable goal like making the unit tests pass it will work tirelessly until that goal is achieved. I don't always like the solution, but the tenacity everyone is talking about is there
Tools in a loop people, tools in a loop.
If you don't give the agent the tools to deterministically test what it did, you're just vibe coding in its worst form.
Re: A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks
#814Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same. This kind of coding feels like it got rid of the building aspect of programming that always felt nice, and it replaced it entirely with business logic concerns, product requirements, code reviews, etc. All the stuff I can generally take or leave. It's like I'm always in a meeting. >If I was intellectually excited about telling something to do this for me, I'd have gotten into management. Exactly this. This is t…
Maybe I don't entirely get it, but what is stopping you to just continue coding?
That's what I'm doing on my codebases, while I still can. I only use Claude if I need to work on a different team's code that uses it heavily. Nothing quite gets a groan from me like opening up a repo and seeing CLAUDE.md
Re: A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks
#815Earlier quoted context omitted.
Coplilot is not on par with cc or cursor even
Why not? You can select Opus 4.5, Gemini 3 Pro, and others.
The model is the engine, the framework is the rest of the car.
With Copilot Microsoft has basically put the meanest leanest triple-turbo'd V8 engine in a rickety 80's soviet car.
You can kinda drive it fast in a straight line if you're careful, but you can also crash and burn really hard.
Re: A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks
#816Earlier quoted context omitted.
Claude Code is a CLI tool which means it can do complete projects in a single command. Also has fantastic tools for scaffolding and harnessing the code. You can define everything from your coding style to specific instructions for designing frontpages, integrating payments, etc. It's not about the model. It's about the harness
Huh? There is nothing stopping copilot from doing an entire project in one go. Ive done it 10s of times.
"Copilot has done 10 tool calls, do you want to continue" or whatever was the bane of my existence before our company approved Claude for use.
Like I asked you to do this task, then you spent time looking around and now want me to pat you on the back so you can continue?
Re: A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks
#817I would agree that OAIs GPT-5 family of models is a phase change over GPT-4. In the ChatGPT product this is not immediately obvious and many people would strongly argue their preference for 4. However, once you introduce several complex tools and make tool calling mandatory, the difference becomes stark. I've got an agent loop that will fail nearly every time on GPT-4. It works sometimes, but definitely not enough to…
Now imagine local models with 95%+ reliable tool calling, you can do insane things when that's the reality.
Re: A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks
#818Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I worry about the "brain atrophy" part, as I've felt this too. And not just atrophy, but even moreso I think it's evolving into "complacency". Not trusting the ML's output is step one here, that keeps you intellectually involved - but it's still a far cry from solving the majority of problems yourself (instead you only solve problems ML did a poor job at). Step two: I delineate interesting and uninteresting work, a…
> I do not bore myself with trivialities such as retrieving a customer from the DB in a REST call Genuine question, why isn't your ORM doing that? I see a lot of use cases for LLMs that seem to be more expensive ways to do snippets and frameworks...
An ORM doesn't generate REST endpoints?
Re: A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks
#819Earlier quoted context omitted.
The failure mode is missing constraints, not “coding skill”. Treat the model as a generator that must operate inside an explicit workflow: define the invariant boundaries, require a plan/diff before edits, run tests and static checks, and stop when uncertainty appears. That turns “hacky conditional” behaviour into controlled change.
Yes, exactly. The LLM is onboarding to your codebase with each context window, all it knows is what it’s seen already.
Right. Each context window is a partial view, so it cannot “know the codebase” unless you supply stable artefacts. Treat project state as inputs: invariants, interfaces, constraints, and a small set of must-keep facts. Then force changes through a plan and a diff, and gate with tests and checks. That turns context limits into a controlled boundary instead of a surprise.
Re: A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks
#820Earlier quoted context omitted.
Presenting this quote without additional commentary is an interesting Rorschach test. Thankfully more and more people are seriously considering the effects of technology on true wisdom and getting of the "all technological progress clearly is great, look at all these silly unenlightened naysayers from the past" train.
Socrates was right about the effects. Writing did indeed cause us to loose the talent of memorizing. Where he was wrong though (or rather where this quote without context is wrong) is that it turned out that memorizing was by the most part not the important skill to have. When Socrates uses the same warnings about LLMs he may however be correct both on the effect and the importance of the skill being lost. If we loos…
You're misinterpreting the quote. Socrates is saying that being able to find a written quotation will replace fully understanding a concept. It's the difference between being able to quote the pythagorean theorem and understanding it well enough to prove it. That's why Socrates says that those who rely on reading will be "hard to get along with" - they will be pedantic without being able to discuss concepts freely.