[lelanthran]

> In another comment here I explained that I have run a test: asking Claude Code to add a substantial feature to 270 different C programs.

That's a different scenario, though.

Would Claude have performed adequately if it had to add a specific feature to 270 programs buried in a set of 270m program, each of which may or may not have a dependency on one or more of the others, with virtually unbounded results to test?

In terms of tokens alone, that would have been cost-prohibitive. But lets assume that you had the money to do this: it still might not even be possible.

You're confusing "I have these 270 independent programs and want to make this change to all of them" with "I have these 270m lines of code, of which only 270 needs to be changed".

[qarl2]

HackerNews is now censoring my replies. I did the math - all of these patches would have cost around $100.

Let's see if they'll let this account through.

[lelanthran]

It's like you are not even reading what is being said to you. You can't find the downstream effects using grep!

You can find the "strncpy"s with grep, but you cannot find all the downstream effect of those changes, especially if something downstream is relying on the broken behaviour!

[qarl2]

Right. I am not claiming Claude Code creates perfect software. I am refuting your claim that using it would be cost prohibitive.

I took the 10 most difficult patches from the git history - the ones that took the most back-and-forth to fix. I asked Claude to write them. Would you like to see the work?

If you believe a human performs better at finding downstream effects - you need to prove that. I see no reason why it should be true.

[lelanthran]

> If you believe a human performs better at finding downstream effects

Once gain, you are not reading what is being said - no one made that claim!

No claim was made in fact: it was a refutation. Specifically, the refutation is "this is why it took so many years".

[qarl2]

> no one made that claim!

You did not literally make that claim but your cost argument hinges on it.

Without it, then Claude does about the same as a human and only costs $100.

Apparently I'm reading your comments more thoroughly than you are.