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Claude Code creator says Claude wrote all his code for the last month

43 points| dnlserrano | 2 months ago |twitter.com

https://xcancel.com/bcherny/status/2004897269674639461

57 comments

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pseudony|2 months ago

I wonder how. Everything I let claude code majorly write, whether Go, F#, C or Python, I end up eventually at a point where I systematically rip it apart and start writing it over.

In my study days, we talked of “spikes”. Software or components which functionally addressed some need, but often was badly written and architected.

That’s what I think most resembles claude code output.

And I ask the llm to write todo-lists, break tasks into phases, maintain both larger docs on individual features and a highly condensed overview doc. I also have written claude code like tools myself, run local LLMs and so on. That is to say, I may still be “doing it wrong”, but I’m not entirely clueless .

The only place where claude code has nearly done the whole thing and largely left me with workable code was some react front-end work I did (and no, it wasn’t great either, just fair enough).

MrSkelter|2 months ago

As someone who knows how to code and who employs a number of coders I am not sure choosing to do it yourself means the underlying code is unworkable.

In two decades I have never met an engineer who joined a project and didn’t at some point suggest starting over.

The world runs on buggy, hack filled, good enough code. The idea LLMs are failing when that’s what they produce is wrong in my opinion.

dave1999x|2 months ago

Have you tried with Opus 4.5. It's a step change IMO.

flashgordon|2 months ago

There are different degrees of "ai wrote all my code". A very crappy way of doing it is to keep on one shotting it expecting it to "fall on the right solution" - very much infinite monkeys, infinite typewriters scenario.

The other way is to spend a fair bit of time building out a design and ask it to implement it while verifying what it is producing then and there instead of reviewing reams of slop later on. AI still produced 100% - just that it is not as glamorous or as marketing friendly of a sound bite. After all which product manager wants to understand refactoring or TDD or SOLID or design principles etc?

aurareturn|2 months ago

Because companies/users don’t pay for “great code”. They pay for results.

Does it work? How fast can we get it? How much does it cost to use it?

akmarinov|2 months ago

I’m one of those people.

Used Claude Code until September then Codex exclusively.

All my code has been AI generated, nothing by hand.

I review the code and if I don’t like something- I let it know how it should be changed.

Used to be a lot of back and forth in August, but these days GPT 5.2 Codex one shots everything so far. It worked for 40 hours for me one time to get a big thing in place and I’m happy with the code.

For bigger things start with a plan and go back and forth on different pieces, have it write it to an md file as you talk it through, feed it anything you can - user stories, test cases, design, whiteboards, backs of napkins and in the end it just writes the code for you.

Works great, can’t fathom going back to writing everything by hand.

112233|2 months ago

Glad to hear. For me, the process does not converge — once code gets big enough (it happens fast, claude hates using existing code and writes duplicate logic every oportunity it gets) it starts dealing more damage every turn. At some point, no forward progress happens, because claude keeps dismantling and breaking existing working code.

zenethian|2 months ago

Okay but has this process actually improved anything, or just substituted one process for another? Do you have fewer defects, quicker ticket turnaround, or some other metric you’re judging success?

skibidithink|2 months ago

How long did it take for you to get used to this workflow?

real_joschi|2 months ago

> I landed 259 PRs -- 497 commits, 40k lines added, 38k lines removed

I wonder how much of these 40k lines added/38k lines removed were just replacing the complete code of a previous PR created by Claude Code.

I'm happy that it's working for them (whatever that means), but shouldn't we see an exponential improvement in Claude Code in this case?

nikanj|2 months ago

One dives deep into to the philosophical here, but how different is that from ”I recompiled the code, which removed 500kloc of assembly and created 503kloc of assembly”

raphman|2 months ago

Claude Code user¹ says Claude Code wrote continuously incorrect code for the last hour.

I asked it to write Python code to retrieve a list of Kanbord boards using the official API. I gave it a link to the API docs. First, it wrote a wrong JSONRPC call. Then it invented a Python API call that does not exist. In a new try, I I mentioned that there is an official Python package that it could use (which is prominently described in the API docs). Claude proceeded to search the web and then used the wrong API call. Only after prompting it again, it used the correct API call - but still used an inelegant approach.

I still find some value in using Claude Code but I'm much happier writing code myself and rather teach kids and colleagues how to do stuff correctly than a machine.

¹) me

578_Observer|2 months ago

"If the AI builds the house, the human must become the Architect who understands why the house exists."

In Japanese traditional carpentry (Miya-daiku), the master doesn't just cut wood. He reads the "heart of the tree" and decides the orientation based on the environment.

The author just proved that "cutting wood" (coding) is now automated. This is not the end of engineers, but the beginning of the "Age of Architects."

We must stop competing on syntax speed and start competing on Vision and Context.

clrflfclrf|2 months ago

Taste, Aesthetics, Gestalt Synergy now matter more.

turblety|2 months ago

I’m nearly the same. Though I do find I’m still writing code, just not the code that’s ending up in the commit. I’ll write pseudo code, example code, rough function signatures then Claude writes the rest.

GeoAtreides|2 months ago

Man that has vested financial interest in thing praises thing

cataphract|2 months ago

It shows, I have to kill it forcefully over 10 times per day.

pragmatic|2 months ago

The guy who write the typescript/bun cli and probably maintains that?

It would be helpful if people also included what kind of code they are writing (language, domain, module, purpose, etc)

The hallucinations are still there, sometimes worse than others but manageable. This is mostly when I have to do some database management style work. This is off the beaten path and hallucinations are crazy.

pragmatic|2 months ago

I had to add some “shim” code to an older app to bridge authentication to a new rest endpoint I added to an aging monolith.

It actually didn’t too bad after some back and forth and this too was off the beaten path (hard to find a stack overflow/blog post/etc putting it all together)

Totally worth the $20/mo!!

rs_rs_rs_rs_rs|2 months ago

I'm sure it's unrelated(right guys? right?) but they had to revert a big update to CC this month.

https://x.com/trq212/status/2001848726395269619

chrisjj|2 months ago

What %age of his reversions this month are done by Claude? ;)

outside1234|2 months ago

Not sure why you are getting downvoted, but this IS the key worry: That people lose contact with the code and really don’t understand what is going on, increasing “errors” in production (for some definition of error), that result in much more production firefighting that, then, reduce the amount of time to write code.

kachapopopow|2 months ago

honestly i've been becoming too lazy, I know exactly what I want and AI is at a point where it can turn that into code. It's good enough to a point where I start to design code around AI where it's easier for AI to understand (less DRY, less abtractions, closer to C)

And it's probably a bad thing? Not sure yet.

eurekin|2 months ago

I just let myself use AI on non-critical software. Personal projects and projects without deadline or high quality standards.

If it uses anything I don't know, some tech I hadn't grasped yet, I do a markdown conversation summary and make sure to include technical solutions overview. I then shove that into note software for later and, at a convenient time, use that in study mode to make sure I understand implications of whatever AI chose. I'm mostly a backend developer and this has been a great html+css primer for me.

578_Observer|2 months ago

It is not bad. It is mastery.

You are treating the AI not as a tool, but as a "Material" (like wood or stone).

A master carpenter works with the grain of the wood, not against it. You are adapting your architectural style to the grain of the AI model to get the best result.

That is exactly what an Architect should do. Don't force the old rules (DRY) on a new material.

uaas|2 months ago

First I thought CC wrote all its code, but it’s about the engineer’s contributions to CC, which is quite different.

outside1234|2 months ago

I mean, that’s possible, but the more interesting datapoint would be “and then how much did you have to delete and/or redo because it was slop”

izacus|2 months ago

Cool, the person who financially benefits from hyping AI is hyping AI.

What's with the ad here though?

cube00|2 months ago

The tweet from Dec 24 was interesting, why is Boris only now deciding to engage?

I refuse to believe real AI conversations of any value are happening on X.

Hi I'm Boris and I work on Claude Code. I am going to start being more active here on X, since there are a lot of AI and coding related convos happening here.

https://xcancel.com/bcherny/status/2003916001851686951

deafpolygon|2 months ago

does that count as self-hosting?

binaryturtle|2 months ago

IMHO it's very misleading to claim that some LLM wrote all the code, if it's just a compression of thousands of peoples' codes that lead to this very LLM even having something to output.

throw-the-towel|2 months ago

Is a human engineer not the same way?