I did read the entire article before commenting and acknowledge that you are using them to some affect, but the line about 50% of the time it works 50% of the time is where I lost faith in the claims you’re making. I agree it’s very context dependent but, in the same way, you did not outline your approaches and practices in how you use AI in your workflow. The same lack of context exists on the other side of the argument.
I agree about the 50/50 thing. It's about how much Claude helped me, and I use it daily too.
I'll give some context, though.
- I use OCaml and Python/SQL, on two different projects.
- Both are single-person.
- The first project is a real-time messaging system, the second one is logging a bunch of events in an SQL database.
In the first project, Claude has been... underwhelming. It casually uses C idioms, overabuses records and procedural programming, ignores basic stuff about the OCaml standard library, and even gave me some data structures that slowed me down later down the line. It also casuallyies about what functions does.
A real example: `Buffer.add_utf_8_uchar` adds the ASCII representation of an utf8 char to a buffer, so it adds something that looks like `\123\456` for non-ascii.
I had to scold Claude for using this function to add an utf8 character to a Buffer so many times I've lost count.
In the second project, Claude really shined. Making most of the SQL database and moving most of the logic to the SQL engine, writing coherent and readable Python code, etc.
I think the main difference is that the first one is an arcane project in an underdog language. The second one is a special case of a common "shovel through lists of stuffs and stuff them in SQL" problem, in the most common language.
Just FYI, try commenting on that function what it is intended to be used for. Because without more info LLMs will rely on function names strongly. Heck, have the LLM add comments to every function and I bet it will start to do better.
> but the line about 50% of the time it works 50% of the time is where I lost faith in the claims you’re making.
It's a play on the Anchorman joke that I slightly misremembered: "60% of the time it works 100% of the time"
> is where I lost faith in the claims you’re making.
Ah yes. You lost faith in mine, but I have to have 100% faith in your 100% unverified claim about "job at a demanding startup" where "you still haven't written a single line of code by hand"?
Why do you assume that your word and experience is more correct than mine? Or why should anyone?
> you did not outline your approaches and practices in how you use AI in your workflow
No one does. And if you actually read the article, you'd see that is literally the point.
> …the line about 50% of the time it works 50% of the time is where I lost faith in the claims you’re making…
That's where the author lost me as well. I'd really be interested in a deep dive on their workflow/tools to understand how I've been so unbelievably lucky in comparison.
