←back to thread

A staff engineer's journey with Claude Code

(www.sanity.io)
548 points kmelve | 4 comments | 02 Sep 25 19:34 UTC | HN request time: 0.202s | source
Show context
rhubarbtree ◴[03 Sep 25 06:33 UTC] No.45112846[source]▶
Does anyone have a link to a video that uses Claude Code to produce clean robust code that solves a non trivial problem (ie not tic tac toe or a landing page) more quickly than a human programmer can write? I don’t want a “demo”, I want a livestream from an independent programmer unaffiliated with any AI company and thus not incentivised to hype.

I want the code to have subsequently been deployed in production and demonstrably robust, without additional work outside of the livestream.

The livestream should include code review, test creation, testing, PR creation.

It should not be on a greenfield project, because nearly all coding is not.

I want to use Claude and I want to be more productive, but my experience to date is that for writing code beyond autocomplete AI is not good enough and leads to low quality code that can’t be maintained, or else requires so much hand holding that it is actually less efficient than a good programmer.

There are lots of incentives for marketing at the grassroots level. I am totally open to changing my mind but I need evidence.

replies(27): >>45112915 #>>45112951 #>>45112960 #>>45112964 #>>45112968 #>>45112985 #>>45112994 #>>45113041 #>>45113054 #>>45113123 #>>45113184 #>>45113229 #>>45113316 #>>45113448 #>>45113465 #>>45113643 #>>45113677 #>>45113802 #>>45114193 #>>45114454 #>>45114485 #>>45114519 #>>45115642 #>>45115900 #>>45116522 #>>45123605 #>>45125152 #
coffeeri ◴[03 Sep 25 07:42 UTC] No.45113229[source]▶
This video [0] is relevant, though it actually supports your point - it shows Claude Code struggling with non-trivial tasks and needing significant hand-holding.

I suspect videos meeting your criteria are rare because most AI coding demos either cherry-pick simple problems or skip the messy reality of maintaining real codebases.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL7Au1tzNxE

replies(2): >>45113491 #>>45114057 #
1. Aeolun ◴[03 Sep 25 10:11 UTC] No.45114057[source]▶
> I suspect videos meeting your criteria are rare because most AI coding demos either cherry-pick simple problems or skip the messy reality of maintaining real codebases.

Or we’re just having too much fun making stuff to make videos to convince people that are never going to be convinced.

replies(1): >>45114880 #
2. Difwif ◴[03 Sep 25 12:23 UTC] No.45114880[source]▶
I took a quick informal poll of my coworkers and the majority of us have found workflows where CC is producing 70-99% of the code on average in PRs. We're getting more done faster. Most of these people tend to be anywhere from 5-12 yrs professional experience. There are some concerns that maybe more bugs are slipping through (but also there's more code being produced).

We agree most problems stem from: 1. Getting lazy and auto-accepting edits. Always review changes and make sure you understand everything. 2. Clearly written specification documents before starting complex work items 3. Breaking down tasks into a managable chunk of scope 4. Clean digestible code architecture. If it's hard for a human to understand (e.g: poor separation of concerns) it will be hard for the LLM too.

But yeah I would never waste my time making that video. Having too much fun turning ideas into products to care about proving a point.

replies(2): >>45120057 #>>45124094 #
3. rhubarbtree ◴[03 Sep 25 20:29 UTC] No.45120057[source]▶
> Having too much fun turning ideas into products to care about proving a point.

This is a strange response to me. Perhaps you and others aren’t aware that there’s a subculture of folks who livestream coding in general? Nothing to do with proving a point.

My interest in finding such examples is exactly due to the posting of comments like yours - strong claims of AI success - that don’t reflect my experience. I want to see videos that show what I’m doing wrong, and why that gives very different results.

I don’t have an agenda or point to prove, I just want to understand. That is the hacker way!

4. theshrike79 ◴[04 Sep 25 06:09 UTC] No.45124094[source]▶
2, 3, 4 are all what human coders need to be efficient too :)

I'm kinda hoping that this LLM craze will force people to be better at it. Have documentation up to date and easily accessible is good for everyone.

Like we're (over here) better at marking lines in the road, because the EU mandated lane keeping assist needs the road markings to be there or it won't work.