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I've been trying every flavor of AI powered development and after trying Claude Code for two days with an API key, I upgraded to the full Max 20x plan. Cursor,

I've been trying every flavor of AI powered development and after trying Claude Code for two days with an API key, I upgraded to the full Max 20x plan. Cursor, Windsurf, Roo Code / Cline, they're fine but nothing feels as thorough and useful to me as Claude Code. The Codex CLI from OpenAI is not bad either, there's just something satisfying about the LLM straight up using the CLI

solumunus 1y ago
It really is night and day. Most of them feel like cool toys, Claude Code is a genuine work horse. It immediately became completely integral to my workflow. I own a small business and I can say with absolute confidence this will reduce the amount of devs I need to hire going forward.
- hollowturtle 1y ago
  I don't get claims like that, if AI let me do more and be more productive with less people I could also grow and scale more, that means that I can also hire more and again multiply growth because each dev will bring more and more... I'm skeptic because I don't see it happening, actually the contrary more people doing more things maybe, but the not 10x nor 100x otherwise we would see products built in 5 years coming out in literally 15 days
  - davnicwil 1y ago
    It might be that the value more software can add is already at its limit in any given business - or at least returns will be diminishing. Meaning in those particular businesses the appetite to hire devs might stay flat (or even shrink!) as AI makes existing devs more efficient. The more interesting question is whether this is true across the economy as a whole. In my view the answer is clearly no. Are we already operating at the limit of more software to add value at the margin? No. So though any particular existing business might stop hiring or even cut staff, it won't matter if more businesses are created to do yet more things in the world with software. We might even end up in a place where across the economy, more dev jobs exist as a result of more people doing more with software in a kind of snowball effect. More conservatively, though, you'd at least expect us to just reach equilibrium with current jobs if indeed there is new demand for software to soak up.
  - solumunus 1y ago
    It’s not my goal to scale infinitely. I want to run a small, tight business which is highly profitable but also pleasant to operate long term. I’m not looking for some huge exit.
wellthisisgreat 1y ago
hey can you explain the appeal of Claude Code vs Cursor? I know the context window part and Cursor RAG-ing it, but isn't IDE integration a a true force multiplier? Or does Claude Code do something similar with "send to chat" / smart (Cursor's TAB feature) autocomplete etc.? I fired it up but it seemed like just Claude in terminal with a lot more manual copy-pasting expected? I tried all the usual suspects in AI-assisted programming, and Cursor's TAB is too good to give up vs Roo / Cline. I do agree Claude's the best for programming so would love to use it full-featured version.
- cybrjoe 1y ago
  i rewrote a code base that i’ve been tinkering on for the last 2 years or so this weekend. a complete replatform, new tech stack, ui, infra, the whole nine yards. the rewrite took exactly 3 days, referenced the old code base, online documentation, github issues all without (mostly) ever leaving claude. it completely blew my mind. i wrote maybe 10 lines of code manually. it’s going to eliminate jobs.
  - lazystar 1y ago
    > it’s going to eliminate jobs. that's the part i'm not sold on yet. it's a tool that allows you to do a year's work in a week - but every dev in every company will be able to use that tool, thus it will increase the productivity of each engineer by an equal amount. that means each company's products will get much better much faster - and it means that any company that cuts head count will be at risk of falling behind it's competitors. i could see it getting rid of some of the infosec analysts, i guess. since itll be easier to keep a codebase up to date, the folks that run a nessus scan and cut tickets asking teams to upgrade their codebase will have less work available.
    - bluefirebrand 1y ago
      > it's a tool that allows you to do a year's work in a week Exaggerations like this really don't help your credibility
dandaka 1y ago
Claude Code works surprisingly well and is also cheaper, compared to Windsurf and Cline + Sonnet 4. The rate of errors dropped dramatically for my side projects, from "I have to check most changes" to "I have not written a line".

solumunus 1y ago

It really is night and day. Most of them feel like cool toys, Claude Code is a genuine work horse. It immediately became completely integral to my workflow. I own a small business and I can say with absolute confidence this will reduce the amount of devs I need to hire going forward.

hollowturtle 1y ago
I don't get claims like that, if AI let me do more and be more productive with less people I could also grow and scale more, that means that I can also hire more and again multiply growth because each dev will bring more and more... I'm skeptic because I don't see it happening, actually the contrary more people doing more things maybe, but the not 10x nor 100x otherwise we would see products built in 5 years coming out in literally 15 days
- davnicwil 1y ago
  It might be that the value more software can add is already at its limit in any given business - or at least returns will be diminishing. Meaning in those particular businesses the appetite to hire devs might stay flat (or even shrink!) as AI makes existing devs more efficient. The more interesting question is whether this is true across the economy as a whole. In my view the answer is clearly no. Are we already operating at the limit of more software to add value at the margin? No. So though any particular existing business might stop hiring or even cut staff, it won't matter if more businesses are created to do yet more things in the world with software. We might even end up in a place where across the economy, more dev jobs exist as a result of more people doing more with software in a kind of snowball effect. More conservatively, though, you'd at least expect us to just reach equilibrium with current jobs if indeed there is new demand for software to soak up.
- solumunus 1y ago
  It’s not my goal to scale infinitely. I want to run a small, tight business which is highly profitable but also pleasant to operate long term. I’m not looking for some huge exit.

wellthisisgreat 1y ago

hey can you explain the appeal of Claude Code vs Cursor? I know the context window part and Cursor RAG-ing it, but isn't IDE integration a a true force multiplier? Or does Claude Code do something similar with "send to chat" / smart (Cursor's TAB feature) autocomplete etc.? I fired it up but it seemed like just Claude in terminal with a lot more manual copy-pasting expected? I tried all the usual suspects in AI-assisted programming, and Cursor's TAB is too good to give up vs Roo / Cline. I do agree Claude's the best for programming so would love to use it full-featured version.

cybrjoe 1y ago
i rewrote a code base that i’ve been tinkering on for the last 2 years or so this weekend. a complete replatform, new tech stack, ui, infra, the whole nine yards. the rewrite took exactly 3 days, referenced the old code base, online documentation, github issues all without (mostly) ever leaving claude. it completely blew my mind. i wrote maybe 10 lines of code manually. it’s going to eliminate jobs.
- lazystar 1y ago
  > it’s going to eliminate jobs. that's the part i'm not sold on yet. it's a tool that allows you to do a year's work in a week - but every dev in every company will be able to use that tool, thus it will increase the productivity of each engineer by an equal amount. that means each company's products will get much better much faster - and it means that any company that cuts head count will be at risk of falling behind it's competitors. i could see it getting rid of some of the infosec analysts, i guess. since itll be easier to keep a codebase up to date, the folks that run a nessus scan and cut tickets asking teams to upgrade their codebase will have less work available.
  - bluefirebrand 1y ago
    > it's a tool that allows you to do a year's work in a week Exaggerations like this really don't help your credibility

dandaka 1y ago

Claude Code works surprisingly well and is also cheaper, compared to Windsurf and Cline + Sonnet 4. The rate of errors dropped dramatically for my side projects, from "I have to check most changes" to "I have not written a line".