4 ms·

It's time to jump on the train. I'm a cranky, old, embedded SWE and claude 4.5 is changing how I work. Before that I laughed off LLMs. They were trash. Claude s

by 01100011 11mo ago

It's time to jump on the train. I'm a cranky, old, embedded SWE and claude 4.5 is changing how I work. Before that I laughed off LLMs. They were trash. Claude still has issues, but damn, I think if I don't integrate it into my workflow I'll be out of work or relegated to work in QA or devops(where I'd likely be forced to use it). No, it's not going to write all your code for you. Yes your skills are still needed to design, debug, perform teamwork(selling your designs, building consensus, etc), etc.. But it's time to get on the train.

rafaelmn 11mo ago
This was true since Claude Sonnet 3.5, so over a year now. I was early on the LLM train building RAG tools and prototypes in the company I was working at the time, but pre Claude 3.5 all the models were just a complete waste of time for coding, except the inline autocomplete models saved you some typing. Claude 3.5 was actually where it could generate simple stuff. Progress kind of tapered off since tho, Claude is still best but Sonnet 4.5 is disappointing in that it does't fundamentally bring me more than 3.5 did it's just a bit better at execution - but I still can't delegate higher level problems to it. Top tier models are sometimes surprisingly good but they take forever.
- lomase 11mo ago
  This was true since ChatGPT-1, and I mean the lies.
  - rafaelmn 11mo ago
    Not really - 3.5 was the first model where I could actually use it to vibe through CRUD without it vasting more time than it saves, I actually used it to deliver a MVP on a side gig I was working on. GPT 4 was nowhere near as useful at the time. And Sonnet 3 was also considerably worse. And from reading through the forums and talking to co-workers this was a common experience.
- 01100011 11mo ago
  Up until using claude 4.5 I had very poor experiences with C/C++. Sure, bash and python worked ok, albeit the occasional hallucination. ChatGPT-5 did ok with C/C++ and fairly well with python(again having issues with omitting code during iterations, requiring me to yell at it a lot). Claude 4.5 just works and it's crazy good.
mattmanser 11mo ago
It's just not true, it is not ready. Especially Claude, where if you check the forums everyone is complaining that it's gone stupid the last few months. Claude's code is all over the place, and if you can't see that and are putting it's code into production I pity your colleagues. Try stopping. Honestly, just try. Just use claude as a super search engine. Though right now ChatGPT is better. You won't see any drop in productivity.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- bratbag 11mo ago
  It's not about blindly accepting autogenerated code. Its using them for tooling integration. Its like terminal autocomplete on steroids. Everything around the code is blazing fast.
- IshKebab 11mo ago
  This is far too simplistic a viewpoint. First of all it depends what you're trying to do. Web dev? AI works pretty well. CPU design? Yeah good luck with that. Secondly it depends what you're using it for within web dev. One shot an entire app? I did that recently for a Chrome extension and while it got many things wrong that I had to learn and fix, it was still waaaaaay faster than doing it myself. Especially for solving stupid JS ecosystem bugs. Nobody sane is suggesting you just generate code and put it straight into production. It isn't ready for that. It is ready for saving you a ton of time if you use it wisely.
  - mattmanser 11mo ago
    I'd say it was pretty naunced. Use it, but don't vibe code. The crux of the issue is that unless you're still writing the code it's too hard to notice when Claude or Codex makes a mountain out of a mole hill, too easy to miss the subtle bugs, too easy to miss the easy abstractions which would have vastly simplified the code. And I do web dev, the code is rubbish. It's actually got subtle problems, even though it fails less. It often munges together loads of old APIs or deprecated ways of doing things. God forbid you need to deal with something like react router or MUI as it will combine code from several different versions. And yes, people are using these tools to directly put code in. I see devs DOING it. The code sucks. Vibe coded PRs are a huge timesink that OTHER people end up fixing. One guy let it run and it changed code in an entirely unrelated part of the system and he didn't even notice. Worse, when scanning the PR it looked reasonable, until I went to fix a 350 line service Claude or codex had puked out that could be rewritten in 20 lines, and realized the code files were in an entirely different search system. They're also generally both terrible at abstracting code. So you end up with tons of code that does sweet FA over and over. And the constant over engineering and exception handling theatre it does makes it look like it's written a lot of code when it's basically turned what should be a 5 liner into an essay. Ugh. This is like coding in the FactoryFactoryFactory days all over again.
friendzis 11mo ago
The moment your code departs from typical patterns in the training set or ("agentic environment") LLMs fall over at best (i.e. can't even find the thing) or do some random nonsense at worst. IMO LLMs are still at the point where they require significant handholding, showing what exactly to do, exactly where. Otherwise, it's constant review of random application of different random patterns, which may or may not satisfy requirements, goals and invariants.
- kakacik 11mo ago
  A contrarian opinion - I also didn't jump the train yet, its even forbidden in our part of company due to various regulations re data secrecy and generally slow adoption. Also - for most seasoned developers, actual dev activity is miniscule part of overall efforts. If you are churning code like some sweatshop every single day at say 45 its by your own choice, you don't want to progress in career or career didn't push you up on its own. What I want to say - that miniscule part of the day when I actually get my hands on the code are the best. Pure creativity, puzzle solving, learning new stuff (or relearning when looking at old code). Why the heck would I want to lose or dilute this and even run towards it? It makes sense if my performance is rated only based on code output, but its not... that would be a pretty toxic place to be polite. Seniority doesn't come from churning out code quicker. Its more long the lines of communication, leading others, empathy, toughness when needed, not avoiding uncomfortable situations or discussions and so on. No room for llms there.
  - morshu9001 11mo ago
    There have been times when something was very important and my ability to churn out quick proof of concept code (pre AI) made the difference. It has catapulted me. I thought talking was all-important, but turns out, there's already too much talk and not enough action in these working groups. So now with AI, that's even quicker. And I can do it more easily during the half relevant part of meetings, which I have a lot more of nowadays. When I have real time to sit and code, I focus on the hardest and most interesting parts, which the AI can't do.
    - 11mo ago
lomase 11mo ago
I am an old SWE and claude 4.5 has not changed a thing on how we work. The teams that have embraced AI in their worlflow have not increased their output compared with they ones that don't use it.
- wiz21c 11mo ago
  I'm like you. I'd say my productivity improved by 5-10%: Claude can make surprinsgly good code edits. For these, my subjective feeling is that claude does in 30 min what I'd have dont in one hour. It's a net gain. Now, my job is about communicating, understanding problems, learning, etc. So my overall productivity is not dramatically changing, but for things related to code, it's a net 5-10%
  - dangus 11mo ago
    Which is where the AI investment disconnect is scary. AI Companies have invested a crazy amount of money into a small productivity gain for their customers. If AI was replacing developers it wouldn’t cost me $20-100/month to get a subscription.
    - lomase 11mo ago
      If I had something that could replace developers I will not sell it. I will get all the goverment IT contracts and make billions in a few months. Nobody does it because LLMS are a fucking scam, like crypto, and I am tired of pretending is not.
- 01100011 11mo ago
  Two things I solidly recommend it for are helper scripts and test code. Writing boilerplate tests is so much easier with it. I recently vibe coded an entire text-ui frontend to perforce, similar to tig for git, and it took about 2 hours. Yeah, I'm not ready to use it for our driver code yet but I would use it to check my work.
  - oblio 11mo ago
iammrpayments 11mo ago
I don’t use AI for anything except translations and searching and I’d say 3 times out of 10 it gives me bad information, while translation only works ok if you use the most expensive models

rafaelmn 11mo ago

This was true since Claude Sonnet 3.5, so over a year now. I was early on the LLM train building RAG tools and prototypes in the company I was working at the time, but pre Claude 3.5 all the models were just a complete waste of time for coding, except the inline autocomplete models saved you some typing. Claude 3.5 was actually where it could generate simple stuff. Progress kind of tapered off since tho, Claude is still best but Sonnet 4.5 is disappointing in that it does't fundamentally bring me more than 3.5 did it's just a bit better at execution - but I still can't delegate higher level problems to it. Top tier models are sometimes surprisingly good but they take forever.

lomase 11mo ago
This was true since ChatGPT-1, and I mean the lies.
- rafaelmn 11mo ago
  Not really - 3.5 was the first model where I could actually use it to vibe through CRUD without it vasting more time than it saves, I actually used it to deliver a MVP on a side gig I was working on. GPT 4 was nowhere near as useful at the time. And Sonnet 3 was also considerably worse. And from reading through the forums and talking to co-workers this was a common experience.
01100011 11mo ago
Up until using claude 4.5 I had very poor experiences with C/C++. Sure, bash and python worked ok, albeit the occasional hallucination. ChatGPT-5 did ok with C/C++ and fairly well with python(again having issues with omitting code during iterations, requiring me to yell at it a lot). Claude 4.5 just works and it's crazy good.

mattmanser 11mo ago

It's just not true, it is not ready. Especially Claude, where if you check the forums everyone is complaining that it's gone stupid the last few months. Claude's code is all over the place, and if you can't see that and are putting it's code into production I pity your colleagues. Try stopping. Honestly, just try. Just use claude as a super search engine. Though right now ChatGPT is better. You won't see any drop in productivity.

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
bratbag 11mo ago
It's not about blindly accepting autogenerated code. Its using them for tooling integration. Its like terminal autocomplete on steroids. Everything around the code is blazing fast.
IshKebab 11mo ago
This is far too simplistic a viewpoint. First of all it depends what you're trying to do. Web dev? AI works pretty well. CPU design? Yeah good luck with that. Secondly it depends what you're using it for within web dev. One shot an entire app? I did that recently for a Chrome extension and while it got many things wrong that I had to learn and fix, it was still waaaaaay faster than doing it myself. Especially for solving stupid JS ecosystem bugs. Nobody sane is suggesting you just generate code and put it straight into production. It isn't ready for that. It is ready for saving you a ton of time if you use it wisely.
- mattmanser 11mo ago
  I'd say it was pretty naunced. Use it, but don't vibe code. The crux of the issue is that unless you're still writing the code it's too hard to notice when Claude or Codex makes a mountain out of a mole hill, too easy to miss the subtle bugs, too easy to miss the easy abstractions which would have vastly simplified the code. And I do web dev, the code is rubbish. It's actually got subtle problems, even though it fails less. It often munges together loads of old APIs or deprecated ways of doing things. God forbid you need to deal with something like react router or MUI as it will combine code from several different versions. And yes, people are using these tools to directly put code in. I see devs DOING it. The code sucks. Vibe coded PRs are a huge timesink that OTHER people end up fixing. One guy let it run and it changed code in an entirely unrelated part of the system and he didn't even notice. Worse, when scanning the PR it looked reasonable, until I went to fix a 350 line service Claude or codex had puked out that could be rewritten in 20 lines, and realized the code files were in an entirely different search system. They're also generally both terrible at abstracting code. So you end up with tons of code that does sweet FA over and over. And the constant over engineering and exception handling theatre it does makes it look like it's written a lot of code when it's basically turned what should be a 5 liner into an essay. Ugh. This is like coding in the FactoryFactoryFactory days all over again.

friendzis 11mo ago

The moment your code departs from typical patterns in the training set or ("agentic environment") LLMs fall over at best (i.e. can't even find the thing) or do some random nonsense at worst. IMO LLMs are still at the point where they require significant handholding, showing what exactly to do, exactly where. Otherwise, it's constant review of random application of different random patterns, which may or may not satisfy requirements, goals and invariants.

kakacik 11mo ago
A contrarian opinion - I also didn't jump the train yet, its even forbidden in our part of company due to various regulations re data secrecy and generally slow adoption. Also - for most seasoned developers, actual dev activity is miniscule part of overall efforts. If you are churning code like some sweatshop every single day at say 45 its by your own choice, you don't want to progress in career or career didn't push you up on its own. What I want to say - that miniscule part of the day when I actually get my hands on the code are the best. Pure creativity, puzzle solving, learning new stuff (or relearning when looking at old code). Why the heck would I want to lose or dilute this and even run towards it? It makes sense if my performance is rated only based on code output, but its not... that would be a pretty toxic place to be polite. Seniority doesn't come from churning out code quicker. Its more long the lines of communication, leading others, empathy, toughness when needed, not avoiding uncomfortable situations or discussions and so on. No room for llms there.
- morshu9001 11mo ago
  There have been times when something was very important and my ability to churn out quick proof of concept code (pre AI) made the difference. It has catapulted me. I thought talking was all-important, but turns out, there's already too much talk and not enough action in these working groups. So now with AI, that's even quicker. And I can do it more easily during the half relevant part of meetings, which I have a lot more of nowadays. When I have real time to sit and code, I focus on the hardest and most interesting parts, which the AI can't do.
  - 11mo ago

lomase 11mo ago

I am an old SWE and claude 4.5 has not changed a thing on how we work. The teams that have embraced AI in their worlflow have not increased their output compared with they ones that don't use it.

wiz21c 11mo ago
I'm like you. I'd say my productivity improved by 5-10%: Claude can make surprinsgly good code edits. For these, my subjective feeling is that claude does in 30 min what I'd have dont in one hour. It's a net gain. Now, my job is about communicating, understanding problems, learning, etc. So my overall productivity is not dramatically changing, but for things related to code, it's a net 5-10%
- dangus 11mo ago
  Which is where the AI investment disconnect is scary. AI Companies have invested a crazy amount of money into a small productivity gain for their customers. If AI was replacing developers it wouldn’t cost me $20-100/month to get a subscription.
  - lomase 11mo ago
    If I had something that could replace developers I will not sell it. I will get all the goverment IT contracts and make billions in a few months. Nobody does it because LLMS are a fucking scam, like crypto, and I am tired of pretending is not.
01100011 11mo ago
Two things I solidly recommend it for are helper scripts and test code. Writing boilerplate tests is so much easier with it. I recently vibe coded an entire text-ui frontend to perforce, similar to tig for git, and it took about 2 hours. Yeah, I'm not ready to use it for our driver code yet but I would use it to check my work.
- oblio 11mo ago

iammrpayments 11mo ago

I don’t use AI for anything except translations and searching and I’d say 3 times out of 10 it gives me bad information, while translation only works ok if you use the most expensive models