[fragmede]

If you try and one shot it, sure, but if you question Claude, point out the errors of its ways, tell it to refactor and ultrathink, point out that two things have similar functionality and could be merged. It can write unhinged code with duplicate unused variable definitions that don't work, and it'll fix it up if you call it out, or you can just do it yourself. (cue questions of if, in that case, it would just be faster to do it yourself.)

[hatefulmoron]

I have a Claude max subscription. When I think of bad Claude code, I'm not thinking about unused variable definitions. I'm thinking about the times you turn on ultrathink, allow it to access tools and negotiate it's solution, and it still churns out an over complicated yet partially correct solution that breaks. I totally trust Claude to fix linting errors.

[fragmede]

It's hard to really discuss in the abstract though. Why was the generared code overly complicated? (I mean, I believe you when you say it was, but it doesn't leave much room for discussion). Similarly, what's partially correct about it? How many additional prompts does it take before you a) use it as a starting point b) use it because it works c) don't use any of it, just throw it away d) post about why it was lousy to all of the Internet reachable from your local ASN.

[hatefulmoron]

I've read your questions a few times and I'm a bit perplexed. What kind of answers are you expecting me to give you here? Surely if you use Claude Code or other tools you'd know that the answers are so varying and situation specific it's not really possible for me to give you solid answers.

[fragmede]

However much you're comfortable sharing! Obviously ideal would be the full source for the "overly complicated" solution, but naturally that's a no go, so even just more words than a two word phrase "overly complicated". Was it complicated because it used 17 classes with no inheritance and 5 would have done it? Was it overly complicated because it didn't use functions and so has the same logic implemented in 5 different places?

I'm not asking you, generically, about what bad code do LLMs produce. It sounds like you used Claude Code in a specific situation and found the generated code lacking. I'm not questioning that it happened to you, I'm curious in what ways it was bad for your specific situation more specifically than "overly complicated". How was it overly complicated?

Even if you can't answer that, maybe you could help me reword the phrasing of my original comment so it's less perplexing?

[WalterSear]

If you are getting garbage out, you are asking it for too much at once. Don't ask for solutions - ask for implementations.

[hatefulmoron]

Distinction without a difference. I'm talking about its output being insufficient, whatever word you want to use for output.

[WalterSear]

And I'm arguing that if the output wasn't sufficient, neither was your input.

You could also be asking for too much in one go, though that's becoming less and less of a problem as LLMs improve.

[hatefulmoron]

You're proposing a truism: if you don't get a good result, it's either because your query is bad or because the LLM isn't good enough to provide a good result.

Yes, that is how this works. I'm talking about the case where you're providing a good query and getting poor results. Claiming that this can be solved by more LLM conversations and ultrathink is cope.

[WalterSear]

I've claimed neither. I actually prefer restarting or rolling back quickly rather than trying to re-work suboptimal outputs - less chance of being rabbit holed. Just add what I've learned to the original ticket/prompt.

'Git gud' isn't much of a truism.