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

(dmitrybrant.com)
925 points dmitrybrant | 24 comments | 07 Sep 25 23:53 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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theptip ◴[08 Sep 25 00:17 UTC] No.45163517[source]▶
A good case study. I have found these two to be good categories of win:

> Use these tools as a massive force multiplier of your own skills.

Claude definitely makes me more productive in frameworks I know well, where I can scan and pattern-match quickly on the boilerplate parts.

> Use these tools for rapid onboarding onto new frameworks.

I’m also more productive here, this is an enabler to explore new areas, and is also a boon at big tech companies where there are just lots of tech stacks and frameworks in use.

I feel there is an interesting split forming in ability to gauge AI capabilities - it kinda requires you to be on top of a rapidly-changing firehose of techniques and frameworks. If you haven’t spent 100 hours with Claude Code / Claude 4.0 you likely don’t have an accurate picture of its capabilities.

“Enables non-coders to vibe code their way into trouble” might be the median scenario on X, but it’s not so relevant to what expert coders will experience if they put the time in.

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bicx ◴[08 Sep 25 00:36 UTC] No.45163642[source]▶
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 having CC often one-shot a great UI for internal tools.

Being able to think at a higher level beyond grunt work and framework nuances is a game-changer for my career of 16 years.

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kccqzy ◴[08 Sep 25 01:31 UTC] No.45163945[source]▶
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 and grunt work?
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abathologist ◴[08 Sep 25 01:40 UTC] No.45163980[source]▶
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.
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1. jama211 ◴[08 Sep 25 04:49 UTC] No.45164721[source]▶
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”.
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2. okr ◴[08 Sep 25 07:38 UTC] No.45165563[source]▶
Love this analogy.
3. philjackson ◴[08 Sep 25 08:20 UTC] No.45165847[source]▶
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.
4. jampekka ◴[08 Sep 25 09:15 UTC] No.45166165[source]▶
Saying boilerplate should exist is like saying every nail should have its own hammer.

Some amount of boilerplate probably needs to exist, but in general it would be better off minimized. For a decade or so there's sadly been a trend of deliberately increasing it.

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5. jonstewart ◴[08 Sep 25 12:07 UTC] No.45167297[source]▶
Carpenters/framers are less skilled and paid less than cabinetmakers. But the world needs more carpenters.
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6. Ygg2 ◴[08 Sep 25 13:24 UTC] No.45167964[source]▶
You can design furniture without nails or screws. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_carpentry

Reason Japanese carpenters do or did that is that sea air + high humidity would absolutely rot anything with nail and screw.

No furniture is really designed from a single tree, though. They aren't massive enough.

I agree with overall sentiment. But the analogy is higly flawed. You can't compare physical things with software. Physical things are way more constrained while software is super abstract.

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7. philsnow ◴[08 Sep 25 14:32 UTC] No.45168810[source]▶
Even Star Trek has self-sealing stem bolts, they don't just 3d print their ships
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8. oldsecondhand ◴[08 Sep 25 17:24 UTC] No.45171067[source]▶
> Reason Japanese carpenters do or did that is that sea air + high humidity would absolutely rot anything with nail and screw.

The other reason was that iron was very expensive in Japan as they had only low quality iron ore.

9. joombaga ◴[08 Sep 25 18:35 UTC] No.45172043[source]▶
They do sometimes 3D print at least smaller ships by the 2380s.
10. mejutoco ◴[08 Sep 25 19:07 UTC] No.45172473[source]▶
There are construction systems, for example in Japanese traditional architecture, that use no nails or screws. Good joinery often removes their need.
11. kazinator ◴[08 Sep 25 19:55 UTC] No.45173118[source]▶
Since we invented the tree and control its parameters and features, this is actually correct.
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12. kazinator ◴[08 Sep 25 19:57 UTC] No.45173148[source]▶
Rather, it is boilerplate that replicates hammers along with nails.
13. j45 ◴[08 Sep 25 20:19 UTC] No.45173420[source]▶
The value is where the demand is, or where the market values it and not just in a skill of working with wood with tools to create nearly anything.
14. coldtea ◴[08 Sep 25 21:56 UTC] No.45174554[source]▶
I can tell you about 1000 ways, the problem is there are no corporate monetary incentives to follow them, and not much late-90s-era FOSS ethos going around either...
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15. coldtea ◴[08 Sep 25 21:58 UTC] No.45174571[source]▶
>Saying boilerplate should exist is like saying every nail should have its own hammer

It's rather saying that we should have parts that join without nailing by now, especially for things we do again and again and again and again.

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16. namibj ◴[09 Sep 25 07:09 UTC] No.45178533[source]▶
While it sounds likely true for the US, it's the opposite in Germany: likely due to societal expectations on "creature comforts" and German homes not being framed with 2x4's but instead getting guild-approved craftsmen to construct a roof for a brick building (with often precast concrete slabs forming the intermediate floors; they're segmented along the non-bridging direction to be less customized).
17. jama211 ◴[10 Sep 25 19:44 UTC] No.45202641[source]▶
I can and will compare them, analogies don’t need to be perfect so long as they get a point across. That’s why they’re analogies, not direct perfect comparisons.

I very much enjoy the Japanese carpentry styles that exist though, off topic but very cool.

18. jama211 ◴[10 Sep 25 19:46 UTC] No.45202663[source]▶
I didn’t say it should exist, only implied it’s a practical inevitability for the moment.
19. jama211 ◴[10 Sep 25 19:48 UTC] No.45202680[source]▶
We’re limited by the limits of our invention though. We can’t set the parameters and features to whatever we want, or we’d set them to “infinitely powerful” and “infinitely simple” - it doesn’t work like that however.
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20. jama211 ◴[10 Sep 25 19:49 UTC] No.45202696[source]▶
By that, you must admit that at least in a sense you imply they’re not cost effective, or practical.
21. kazinator ◴[10 Sep 25 21:37 UTC] No.45204187{3}[source]▶
Those parameters of the invention that limit people from just doing away with boilerplate are ones they won't change, not can't.
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22. jama211 ◴[11 Sep 25 02:25 UTC] No.45207005{4}[source]▶
Well, depending on the value proposition, or the required goals, that’s not necessarily true. There are pros and cons to different approaches, and pretending there aren’t downsides to such a switch is problematic.
23. jama211 ◴[11 Sep 25 02:26 UTC] No.45207010{3}[source]▶
Did you read shouldn’t when they wrote should?
24. abathologist ◴[12 Sep 25 20:16 UTC] No.45226256[source]▶
This is a terribly confused analogy, afaict. But maybe if you could explain in what sense boilerplate, as defined in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boilerplate_text, is anything like a nail, it could be less confusing.