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"Laughing" at how bad the code in Claude Code is really seems to be missing the forest for the trees. Anthropic didn't set out to build a bunch of clean code wh

by johnfn 6mo ago

"Laughing" at how bad the code in Claude Code is really seems to be missing the forest for the trees. Anthropic didn't set out to build a bunch of clean code when writing Claude Code. They set out to make a bunch of money, and given CC makes in the low billions of ARR, is growing rapidly, and is the clear market leader, it seems they succeeded. Given this, you would think you'd would want to approach the strategy that Anthropic used with curiosity. How can we learn from what they did? There's nothing wrong with saying that Claude Code is written shoddily. It definitely is. But I think it should come with the recognition that Anthropic achieved all of its goals despite this. That's pretty interesting, right? I'd love to be talking about that instead.

alephnerd 6mo ago
> That's pretty interesting, right? I'd love to be talking about that instead So would I and a couple of others, but HNers don't want to have those kinds of conversations anymore.
quikoa 6mo ago
If Claude Code truly was worth something they'd sell it instead of forcing its use with a subscription.
- dcre 6mo ago
  Incredible take. They are selling it.
  - esafak 6mo ago
    No, they are not. People just want the model. Let people bring their own harness to their Anthropic subscription and see who's still using CC.
    - woeirua 6mo ago
      You can literally do this right now if you want. The masses have spoken, they want CC.
      - esafak 6mo ago
        You literally can't use your Anthropic subscription that you paid for with any agent other than CC; you have to pay by the token. We've talked about this a lot; check the history. Saying "you can use any other agent, just pay 20x more through the API!" does not demonstrate a realistic choice.
        dcre 6mo ago
        Every Claude Enterprise customer is choosing that. Claude Enterprise bills at API rates (presumably with a discount if you're big enough).
- johnfn 6mo ago
  Isn’t this the point? People use CC for the model, not the harness. So the harness can be slop and it doesn’t matter.

by johnfn 6mo ago

alephnerd 6mo ago

> That's pretty interesting, right? I'd love to be talking about that instead So would I and a couple of others, but HNers don't want to have those kinds of conversations anymore.

quikoa 6mo ago

If Claude Code truly was worth something they'd sell it instead of forcing its use with a subscription.

dcre 6mo ago
Incredible take. They are selling it.
- esafak 6mo ago
  No, they are not. People just want the model. Let people bring their own harness to their Anthropic subscription and see who's still using CC.
  - woeirua 6mo ago
    You can literally do this right now if you want. The masses have spoken, they want CC.
    - esafak 6mo ago
      You literally can't use your Anthropic subscription that you paid for with any agent other than CC; you have to pay by the token. We've talked about this a lot; check the history. Saying "you can use any other agent, just pay 20x more through the API!" does not demonstrate a realistic choice.
      - dcre 6mo ago
        Every Claude Enterprise customer is choosing that. Claude Enterprise bills at API rates (presumably with a discount if you're big enough).
johnfn 6mo ago
Isn’t this the point? People use CC for the model, not the harness. So the harness can be slop and it doesn’t matter.