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I'll be honest, I don't actually understand what people mean when they say Claude Code is bad software. Seems pretty good to me. Presumably this is about the T

by simonw 13d ago

I'll be honest, I don't actually understand what people mean when they say Claude Code is bad software. Seems pretty good to me. Presumably this is about the TUI version?

metaltyphoon 13d ago
Do you really think that having this many issues is justifiable/ok? https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues
- tripledry 13d ago
  I dont't really know stats about such things, but I assume the adoption of CC has been insane compared to almost anything, and is also like two years old? Yeah, not surprised. But also, if they all use 500 agents daily and latest models can "one shot" everything, one would think 5k issues are fixed in no time... Havent used CC in some time, worked fine last time I tried.
  - metaltyphoon 13d ago
    > But also, if they all use 500 agents daily and latest models can "one shot" everything, one would think 5k issues are fixed in no time... IMO, CC should be the poster child of what LLM coding should "feel" like. If things are so good why are there so many issues? Why can't they get a handle like other well-run projects? As you said, they have unlimited tokens so this project should be close to pristine as much as possible.
- simonw 13d ago
  Those numbers don't really mean anything. Claude Code has millions of users, and that issue forum is the most obvious place for them to ask questions or request features. If there were 11,000 open and confirmed bugs then yeah, that would mean the software is bad.
  - metaltyphoon 13d ago
    > Those numbers don't really mean anything IMO this is very dismissive. One example of probably many more, where software is used by millions and yet doesn't have this much being reported. https://github.com/curl/curl/issues https://github.com/curl/curl/issues
    - simonw 12d ago
      curl isn't end-user software, and has a very small, well defined surface area.
      - slopinthebag 12d ago
        curl is certainly a much more difficult problem to solve well, and does so without 30 million issues or whatever the CC codebase has
        usef- 12d ago
        Curl is great, but I think you're vastly underestimating the surface area of CC. It looks like it has more in: editor integrations, multiple guis and tuis, config variations, external systems (eg, git, mcps, curl-like requests?), statefulness (curl is "only" request response), inner runtimes (eg, sandbox per OS), sensitivity to its environment, possible side effects of its own execution, potential interaction combinations, etc. Curl has hard system-level code requirements but it's design space feels more bounded and predictable to me. This of course isn't an excuse for all bugs.
        slopinthebag 12d ago
        yes but there is a big difference between 100 sloppy features vs a handful of strongly and safely executed ones. it's not linear in effort.
        brazukadev 12d ago
        > I think you're vastly underestimating the surface area of CC. That is one of the reasons CC code is so low quality. The amount of extra unnecessary code just to implement it using React is by far the worst technical slop decision I've seen made by so called "software engineers" in a long time.
- deleted 12d ago
  [deleted]
simianwords 13d ago
I'm surprised you think Claude Code is good software. I find it so hard to use because it is fundamentally constrained as a TUI. It is buggy, clunky and slow. It is sooo slow. One example of what is particularly bad with it: tool calls and progress. Codex UI does it so much better. The way in which CC waits for a task to complete etc is really poorly done compared to Codex. Another thing that's missing: no way to continue a side chat in Claude Code - this is easy in Codex with /side and it is super usefu.
- simonw 13d ago
  Claude Code has /btw which I think is the equivalent of /side in Codex. I don't think Claude Code is perfect software, but I don't think fact that Codex has a slightly nicer implementation of certain patterns makes Claude Code bad software.
  - simianwords 12d ago
    > Claude Code has /btw which I think is the equivalent of /side in Codex. it tries but /btw can't be invoked at any time. it is blocked until the reasoning is done. you also can't continue the chat with it you also can't have tool calls inside it
- hombre_fatal 12d ago
  Harnesses try to solve a wide range of complex, open-ended UX problems, so there isn't a perfect one. CC might be the best one I've used if I give each major UX aspect a rating 1-5 and then average them. For example, it has a decent subagent viewer. Meanwhile, Codex doesn't even have one, and its subagent tool call is so buggy that the parent agent sometimes doesn't even know why the child died. Being a TUI is very limiting, yes, though that limitation isn't the harness' fault.
mahogany 12d ago
I've only used the Claude TUI, but it is extremely sluggish. It takes 1-2 seconds minimum to launch on a MBP M4 with 48 GB of memory. I have also encountered plenty of display-related bugs that you can find documented all over the internet. If you had to group this into a software quality bucket, it certainly would not fall into "good". Maybe "mid".

by simonw 13d ago

I'll be honest, I don't actually understand what people mean when they say Claude Code is bad software. Seems pretty good to me. Presumably this is about the TUI version?

metaltyphoon 13d ago

Do you really think that having this many issues is justifiable/ok? https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues

tripledry 13d ago
I dont't really know stats about such things, but I assume the adoption of CC has been insane compared to almost anything, and is also like two years old? Yeah, not surprised. But also, if they all use 500 agents daily and latest models can "one shot" everything, one would think 5k issues are fixed in no time... Havent used CC in some time, worked fine last time I tried.
- metaltyphoon 13d ago
  > But also, if they all use 500 agents daily and latest models can "one shot" everything, one would think 5k issues are fixed in no time... IMO, CC should be the poster child of what LLM coding should "feel" like. If things are so good why are there so many issues? Why can't they get a handle like other well-run projects? As you said, they have unlimited tokens so this project should be close to pristine as much as possible.
simonw 13d ago
Those numbers don't really mean anything. Claude Code has millions of users, and that issue forum is the most obvious place for them to ask questions or request features. If there were 11,000 open and confirmed bugs then yeah, that would mean the software is bad.
- metaltyphoon 13d ago
  > Those numbers don't really mean anything IMO this is very dismissive. One example of probably many more, where software is used by millions and yet doesn't have this much being reported. https://github.com/curl/curl/issues https://github.com/curl/curl/issues
  - simonw 12d ago
    curl isn't end-user software, and has a very small, well defined surface area.
    - slopinthebag 12d ago
      curl is certainly a much more difficult problem to solve well, and does so without 30 million issues or whatever the CC codebase has
      - usef- 12d ago
        Curl is great, but I think you're vastly underestimating the surface area of CC. It looks like it has more in: editor integrations, multiple guis and tuis, config variations, external systems (eg, git, mcps, curl-like requests?), statefulness (curl is "only" request response), inner runtimes (eg, sandbox per OS), sensitivity to its environment, possible side effects of its own execution, potential interaction combinations, etc. Curl has hard system-level code requirements but it's design space feels more bounded and predictable to me. This of course isn't an excuse for all bugs.
        slopinthebag 12d ago
        yes but there is a big difference between 100 sloppy features vs a handful of strongly and safely executed ones. it's not linear in effort.
        brazukadev 12d ago
        > I think you're vastly underestimating the surface area of CC. That is one of the reasons CC code is so low quality. The amount of extra unnecessary code just to implement it using React is by far the worst technical slop decision I've seen made by so called "software engineers" in a long time.
deleted 12d ago
[deleted]

simianwords 13d ago

I'm surprised you think Claude Code is good software. I find it so hard to use because it is fundamentally constrained as a TUI. It is buggy, clunky and slow. It is sooo slow. One example of what is particularly bad with it: tool calls and progress. Codex UI does it so much better. The way in which CC waits for a task to complete etc is really poorly done compared to Codex. Another thing that's missing: no way to continue a side chat in Claude Code - this is easy in Codex with /side and it is super usefu.

simonw 13d ago
Claude Code has /btw which I think is the equivalent of /side in Codex. I don't think Claude Code is perfect software, but I don't think fact that Codex has a slightly nicer implementation of certain patterns makes Claude Code bad software.
- simianwords 12d ago
  > Claude Code has /btw which I think is the equivalent of /side in Codex. it tries but /btw can't be invoked at any time. it is blocked until the reasoning is done. you also can't continue the chat with it you also can't have tool calls inside it
hombre_fatal 12d ago
Harnesses try to solve a wide range of complex, open-ended UX problems, so there isn't a perfect one. CC might be the best one I've used if I give each major UX aspect a rating 1-5 and then average them. For example, it has a decent subagent viewer. Meanwhile, Codex doesn't even have one, and its subagent tool call is so buggy that the parent agent sometimes doesn't even know why the child died. Being a TUI is very limiting, yes, though that limitation isn't the harness' fault.

mahogany 12d ago

I've only used the Claude TUI, but it is extremely sluggish. It takes 1-2 seconds minimum to launch on a MBP M4 with 48 GB of memory. I have also encountered plenty of display-related bugs that you can find documented all over the internet. If you had to group this into a software quality bucket, it certainly would not fall into "good". Maybe "mid".