alt Hacker NewsI find myself coding a lot with Claude Code.. but then it's very hard to quantify the productivity boost. The first 80% seem magical, the last ones are painful. I have to basically get the mental model of the codebase in my head no matter what.
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" I have to basically get the mental model of the codebase in my head no matter what."
This is a key insight, I'm unable to get around this.
It's the thing I require to have before I let go, and I want to make sure it's easy to grasp again aka clear in the docs.
Basically - the sys architecture, the mental model for key things, even the project structure, you have to have a pretty good feel for.
It's the intermittent reward model, and the reward hits, but the reward might be hallucinated in the fuller sense.
Provide better context to LLMs: more documentation, more skills, better Claude files, more ways to harness (tests, compilers, access to artifacts etc).
> I have to basically get the mental model of the codebase in my head no matter what.
Ah yes, I feel this too! And that's much harder with someone else's code than with my own.
I unleashed Google's Jules on my toy project recently. I try to review the changes, amend the commits to get rid of the worst, and generally try to supervise the process. But still, it feels like the project is no longer mine.
Yes, Jules implemented in 10 minutes what would've taken me a week (trigonometry to determine the right focal point and length given my scene). And I guess it is the right trigonometry, because it works. But I fear going near it.
This is my experience, which is why I stopped altogether.
I think I'm better off developing a broad knowledge of design patterns and learning the codebases I work with in intricate, painstaking detail as opposed to trying to "go fast" with LLMs.
I have the issue that I run into some bug that it just cannot fix. Bear in mind I am developing an online game. And then I have to get into the weeds myself which feels such an gargantuan effort after having used the LLM, that I just want to close the IDE and go do something else. Yes, I have used Opus 4.6 and Codex 5.3 and they cannot just solve some issues no matter how I twist it. Might be the language and the fact that it is a game with custom engine and not a react app.
I talked with my coworker today and asked which model he uses, he said Opus 4.6 but he said he doesn't use any AI stuff much anymore since he felt it makes him not learn and build the mental model which I tend to agree a bit with.