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Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

(martinalderson.com)
413 points martinald | 1 comments | 08 Dec 25 19:00 UTC | HN request time: 0.238s | source
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Normal_gaussian ◴[08 Dec 25 22:15 UTC] No.46198373[source]▶
> I've had Claude Code write an entire unit/integration test suite in a few hours (300+ tests) for a fairly complex internal tool. This would take me, or many developers I know and respect, days to write by hand.

I'm not sure about this. The tests I've gotten out in a few hours are the kind I'd approve if another dev sent then but haven't really ended up finding meaningful issues.

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1. martinald ◴[08 Dec 25 22:22 UTC] No.46198445[source]▶
Just to be clear, they weren't stupid 'is 1+1=2' type tests.

I had the agent scan the UX of the app being built, find all the common flows and save them to a markdown file.

I then asked the agent to find edge cases for them and come up with tests for those scenarios. I then set off parallel subagents to develop the the test suite.

It found some really interesting edge cases running them - so even if they never failed again there is value there.

I do realise in hindsight it makes it sound like the tests were just a load of nonsense. I was blown away with how well Claude Code + Opus 4.5 + 6 parallel subagents handled this.