3 ms·

I have made large projects using Claude, with success. I know what I want to do and how to do it, maybe my prompts were right.

miunau 2y ago
How do you deal with large files? After about a thousand lines in a file, it starts to cough for me. Forgets that some functions exist and makes up inferior duplicate ones.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- johnisgood 2y ago
  I did not experience hallucinations (very rarely if at al) when I use it for programming. It happened more with niche languages (so I provide examples and documentation), and with GPT. Let us say there is 3k lines of RFCs, API, documentation of niche languages, examples), 2k lines of code generated by Claude (iteratively, starting small), then I do exceed the limit after a while. In that case I ask it to summarize everything in detail, start a new chat, use those 3k lines and the recent code, and continue ad infinitum.
- 0x5f3759df-i 2y ago
  If possible you need to refactor before getting to that point. Claude has done a good job refactoring, though I’ve had to tell it to give me a refactor plan upfront in case the conversation limit gets hit. Then in a new chat I tell it which parts of the plan it has already done. But a larger context/conversation limit is definitely needed because it’s super easy to fill up.
- anonzzzies 2y ago
  I ask it to cut files up when they get too large, that seems t work pretty well. It is also good at that, but you have to sternly tell it NOT to make any functional changes, otherwise it will and breakage will happen.
mattmanser 2y ago
What do you define as a large project? Like TLOC?
- johnisgood 2y ago
  In my case the maximum was ~3k LOC.
  - mvdtnz 2y ago
    That's not just small, it's utterly miniscule. It's most certainly not large.
    - johnisgood 2y ago
      Depends. 3k is pretty much enough for a fully-featured XY. So no context, and differences of the definition of "large". Perhaps if you come from Java, then yeah. shrugs
      - magicalhippo 2y ago
        I'd still call 3kLOC quite small in all mainstream languages. I worked on a Python project which I'd consider as medium sized, ie not small but not large, and it was around 25kLOC. My $dayjob is a Delphi codebase with roughly 500kLOC, which I'd say is large but not huge. Though if you wrote it in something like K[1], then yeah ok, I'd agree 3kLOC probably counts as large. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_(programming_language)
      - mvdtnz 2y ago
        I have spent my career working on software that measures its size in MLOC (millions of lines of code). Not because it's Java, but because it's big.
    - ForTheKidz 2y ago
      Nah this is miniscule: https://github.com/coreutils/coreutils/blob/master/src/yes.c https://github.com/coreutils/coreutils/blob/master/src/yes.c You can fit a hell of a lot of functionality in 3k statements. Really whether it's considered large or small necessarily must rely on the functionality it's intended to provide.

miunau 2y ago

How do you deal with large files? After about a thousand lines in a file, it starts to cough for me. Forgets that some functions exist and makes up inferior duplicate ones.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
johnisgood 2y ago
I did not experience hallucinations (very rarely if at al) when I use it for programming. It happened more with niche languages (so I provide examples and documentation), and with GPT. Let us say there is 3k lines of RFCs, API, documentation of niche languages, examples), 2k lines of code generated by Claude (iteratively, starting small), then I do exceed the limit after a while. In that case I ask it to summarize everything in detail, start a new chat, use those 3k lines and the recent code, and continue ad infinitum.
0x5f3759df-i 2y ago
If possible you need to refactor before getting to that point. Claude has done a good job refactoring, though I’ve had to tell it to give me a refactor plan upfront in case the conversation limit gets hit. Then in a new chat I tell it which parts of the plan it has already done. But a larger context/conversation limit is definitely needed because it’s super easy to fill up.
anonzzzies 2y ago
I ask it to cut files up when they get too large, that seems t work pretty well. It is also good at that, but you have to sternly tell it NOT to make any functional changes, otherwise it will and breakage will happen.

mattmanser 2y ago

What do you define as a large project? Like TLOC?

johnisgood 2y ago
In my case the maximum was ~3k LOC.
- mvdtnz 2y ago
  That's not just small, it's utterly miniscule. It's most certainly not large.
  - johnisgood 2y ago
    Depends. 3k is pretty much enough for a fully-featured XY. So no context, and differences of the definition of "large". Perhaps if you come from Java, then yeah. shrugs
    - magicalhippo 2y ago
      I'd still call 3kLOC quite small in all mainstream languages. I worked on a Python project which I'd consider as medium sized, ie not small but not large, and it was around 25kLOC. My $dayjob is a Delphi codebase with roughly 500kLOC, which I'd say is large but not huge. Though if you wrote it in something like K[1], then yeah ok, I'd agree 3kLOC probably counts as large. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_(programming_language)
    - mvdtnz 2y ago
      I have spent my career working on software that measures its size in MLOC (millions of lines of code). Not because it's Java, but because it's big.
  - ForTheKidz 2y ago
    Nah this is miniscule: https://github.com/coreutils/coreutils/blob/master/src/yes.c https://github.com/coreutils/coreutils/blob/master/src/yes.c You can fit a hell of a lot of functionality in 3k statements. Really whether it's considered large or small necessarily must rely on the functionality it's intended to provide.