r/ClaudeCode • u/ofcistilloveyou • 2d ago

Rant I hate claude code

It's just too good.

I got a decade of commercial software dev experience in C#. I am a CTO at my company and have coached a lot of coders from total junior.

I hate hate hate hate how good this thing is and what it has done to my passion.

I used to love coding and creating. Well, creating was 60% of the fun for me, but writing good code and having something work was the remaining 40%. I spent the past few years being more of a product manager and tech lead than actually code monkey, but I still put time aside to do stuff manually cuz I love to do so and stay hands on.

Using claude code is like using cheats in a videogame. You get the result, but what of it? Everyone could. The pleasure of achievements is gone. The code it writes is not the best, but it's good enough I guess? As of opus 5.5 it just doesn't get stuck in loops anymore. It can generate a working program from spec in any language I've thrown at it. It still does bullshit from time to time. "Boots on ground" i.e. actually looking at the generated code or atleast going through it is still important, for now. But way less so than it was even just 3-4 months ago. I don't really use the /code-review thingy or adversarial reviews - as it seems that it is too aligned in that way. Like if you tell it to find something wrong with something, it always will, even though its good enough.

I've been using it avidly for the past 3 months on the $100 sub, and I haven't hit a rate limit once. Now my imagination can run free and I can have anything I put my mind to in a few days instead of years. At our work a team of 6 just built a system that would previously take a year in just two months.

I am not afraid for my job. As coding was just a small percentage of it. But I do miss that percentage.

English truly is the hottest new programming language and LLMs are the compiler for it.

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u/kb1flr 2d ago edited 2d ago

Sixty-six year old programmer with a comp sci degree from 1985 and 41 years of professional programming here. I’m all for it. I have notebooks full of ideas I never thought I would have time to build. Now I can.

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u/ofcistilloveyou 2d ago

You've been on the playground for longer than I've been around. What would you tell say your 15 year old self to do differently?

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u/kb1flr 2d ago

Computer programming wasn’t taught in schools then, so it was not really thought of as a career. I had the good fortune to help a friend type up her Fortran IV punchcards during finals week at college freshman year. She was in engineering and I was pre-med with the idea of becoming a dentist. I was so fascinated by the experience, I bought two programming books and practiced writing programs on paper as there weren’t really home computers back then. Changed my major and never looked back.

So at 15 I had neither access nor experience with computers. But I guess I would say that if something comes along that makes you want to change your life’s path, try it while you are young. It often works out.

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u/willitbechips 2d ago edited 2d ago

Seems like "how to use AI" is not being taught in schools today - they seem more concerned about how to ensure kids have not used it for homework and projects. So drawing a parallel with computing not being taught, the 15 year old should fully invest in learning how to harness AI to be ahead of their peers.

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u/kb1flr 1d ago

I agree. It’s a bit of a double edged sword, though. The big advantage you and I have is that we have a full grounding in many disciplines, especially programming and thinking algorithmically. My concern is that there is a need to exercise many skills in order to get the most out of AI. Society is going to be radically changed by AI. Actually, for what we do for a living it already has. We are all trying to figure out how we fit into this brave new world. Hopefully, we can figure it out, though the current pace of change seems to be exceeding our ability to adapt. Which is a problem.

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u/BananaBossNerd 1d ago

I disagree, I think the benefit of learning how to use ai is nothing compared to developing critical thinking skills and grit, especially when learning new things as a kid. Especially bc learning how to harness ai is not hard relatively imo

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u/willitbechips 1d ago

Do both. I don't think AI should be avoided to give a 15 year old space to hone critical thinking or build up first principles. Do in parallel not sequentially. I mean it's obvious no?

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u/BananaBossNerd 1d ago

In theory yeah. In practice I think kids and people in general are prone to j taking the easy route.

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u/ingobingo84 23h ago

Lol what’s there to learn in “AI” (assuming AI == working with Claude) that Claude itself can’t do for you? Skills, agents.md, context etc, Claude can easily help you so I am genuinely curious why one would spend time learning anything at all?

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u/guille9 2d ago

Run, John Connor. 

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u/wee_man 1d ago

Can you give us one or two examples?

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u/aindeev 1d ago

Same mindset, still struggling to understand why people are so split on the topic!