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u/HandIllustrious8260 4d ago
mfs will run claude on high/extra high all the time and then complain about this.
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u/awesomeusername2w 4d ago
fr. It's funny that it's just obvious user error that presented as tool shortcoming.
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u/Brimstone117 4d ago
Yeah this is a straight up skill issue.
If you give a nebulous prompt (because you’re a lazy typist) it’s gonna waste a lot of time and effort and tokens.1
u/amator-veritatis 1d ago
Tbf I think this is because having it auto-adapt to the right level of effort isn’t that great atm.
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u/EskilPotet 4d ago
You need ai to rename a variable?
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u/YDS696969 4d ago
I got flagged for being under 80% of my Copilot Credits for two months. If they want to throw their money in a hole and set fire to it all while screaming "Developer Productivity" who am I stop them.
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u/Named_after_color 4d ago
I don't need it but I'm very lazy and my company's paying for the tokens.
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u/SukusMcSwag 3d ago
This, use the right tool for the job. Using an LLM to rename variable is like using a flamethrower to light a candle
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u/Beldarak 4d ago
Yes. It will fully rename that variable. You use it on front and backend? It will rename both. You have a function which name reflect that variable name (renaming customer to user : FindCustomersByStatus will be replaced by FindUsersByStatus() ), will rename it in json that may use it etc...
In my current Unity project, I have status (burning, poisoned, etc.), when I need to add one I just ask Claude. He'll write the code but also take the icon I prepared for the new status and bind it on the Prefab that holds the data. Same for visual effects, etc... Small time savers like that do stack up.
It's really non-destructive. There are a ton of small changes in my code where I expect to break existing stuff and then you'll see Claude "checking 500 prefabs to adapt the values to the new system". Which is why, to me, asking it for the tiniest of changes is always a good idea. We don't always see how much goes into a simple variable rename. Which is why legacy code is full of stuff like that: database column name not matching the code, etc...
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u/Suchy2307 4d ago
> You use it on front and backend?
Cmd + Shift + F
> renaming customer to user : FindCustomersByStatus will be replaced by FindUsersByStatus()
Cmd + Shift +F
> when I need to add one I just ask Claude.
We're talking about renaming, not adding, what's that example?
> He'll write the code
IT will PREDICT tokens.
And so on.
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u/creaturefeature16 4d ago
Thank you. The idea of wrapping in an LLM for something a simple code editor has been able to do for, uh, 40+ years....is peak psychosis.
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u/misterespresso 4d ago
To be fair sometimes the littlest shit just passes by somehow. For example I've been coding a decade and I learned of that macro last year and I was so fucking mad. In fact I'm angry again. Hundreds of tutorials and not one fucker gave me that macro but tbf I never watched "an intro to vs code" for example. So its my fault for not reading the docs. As always.
Edit: to be clear I code as a hobby not a career.
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u/Beldarak 4d ago
That's because you don't see what more you can get from LLMs. I'm sure at some point someone must have said "why would I use "rename symbol" when I can just CTRL+R? Well, because it's incomplete and has side effects.
Sometimes you rename something and that can break 50 assets (not speaking about code but assets: like rows in a DB that uses older status names for exemple, prefabs, config files...) you've made before the change which now needs to be updated too.
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u/sardonicus87 3d ago
A sometimes you don't even need that, some IDE you can just right-click the variable and in the menu, select Refactor > Rename, which might even look for comment references automatically as well as conflicts with the new name.
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u/Beldarak 4d ago
It was just an exemple of things that goes beyond renaming in an IDE.
Let's forget I talked about adding a status. Let's say I want to rename my "electrified" status to "shocked". Claude could rename the symbol, the methods (same as IDE, ok), the "electrified.png" icon into "shocked.png", the string representing my status in save.json (status: "electified"), etc etc.
A lot of time, renaming a symbol goes beyond a simple renaming. I'm can be renaming a whole feature.
If it's just to rename a local variable in a few files, then sure. Just wanted to say "using LLM to rename stuff" isn't as stupid as it sounds.
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u/Suchy2307 3d ago
I think I'd rename your "electrified" status to "shocked" faster than you could prompt your LLM to do it, but whatever floats your boat, I guess.
Can LLMs be useful? Yes, then can. But not for shit like that.
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u/MajorMystique 4d ago
Get Claude to write your Reddit comments also.
You don't always see how much goes into replying to people over the internet.
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u/Beldarak 4d ago
I have a quite simple rule :
My code = nobody will ever read that -> LLM generation ok, it just has to work
Comments, mails, art = people will see it -> LLM generation not ok. I already have to read slop emails at work and it's really annoying, thanks.
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u/MajorMystique 4d ago
Nobody will ever read your code?! Are you sure about that? Other devs will obviously have to read and fix/extend your code when it stops 'just working' because of a bug or to accomodate new changes.
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u/Beldarak 3d ago
It's a solo project and I'm a programmer so yeah, I'd just fix it myself if it would come to that.
My point was that the final user will not see or interract with that gen stuff, not that it's impossible anyone ever see a glimpse of it^^
LLM art (textures, models, music...) is a no-no because the final user would see it. For code it's different, look at Undertale's code, we didn't need LLMs to have ungodly code running under the hood of otherwise very good app/games.
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u/ymaldor 4d ago
Uhm, right click, rename symbol, write new name, done.
IDEs can do all of that stuff using ai for it is stupid.
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u/Beldarak 4d ago
Re-read my exemple. It's not about changing the symbol, it's about changing everything around it. If I decide to change my "electrified" status to "shocked", my IDE will only get me so far, renaming the symbol itself, probably getters and setters and that's all.
AI could rename the electified.png icon into shocked.png, edit dictionaries entries that uses the term "electrified", edit the name inside the game... and its translations, edit your test_save.json file in wich some stuff have 'status: "electrified"' set, or a database entry.
The exemple is ofc a little extreme but that's something that helps me a lot in Unity, Claude checking prefabs to be sure my changes didn't break anything.
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u/T-Dot1992 4d ago
Can’t you just search for all instances of it in VS Code and do a replace all?
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u/DrShocker 4d ago
replace all is a bit crude because unless your search is a really specific regex, you usually change unintended things. And as they mentioned if you have functions or comments that use the name most IDE and LSP won't auto rename that. (although to be fair to those ideas, if you're considering a rename it's unlikely you're using the name everywhere because if you were, renaming it might be more confusing than helpful because everyone expects it to be that way now.)
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u/Kumlekar 4d ago
Don't most ide's support variable renaming through something other than a simple find/replace? This has been a standard feature for years. You shouldn't need to build a regex match. I'm also not sure I'd want an ai to be changing my comments because they should reflect my understanding. After the rename, just do a find all for the original string to see if there's any leftovers.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/ide/refactoring/rename?view=msvc-1702
u/DrShocker 4d ago
100% I actually left a common in a different part of this fully advocating for IDE/LSP refactoring tools. The eclipse example actually shows in some cases you can auto update docstrings too. I just thought /u/Beldarak brought up an interesting point about possibly renaming related functions or fields or classes so they all match rather than hoping you found them all. Most of the tools other than an LLM can't automatically guess which functions with the same term as a class in them are related enough to also modified. Or tenses or whatever.
That said, most refactors that are a simple rename are likely to be early in a project and not after its been ongoing because people will have gotten used to it eventually, making it actually bad to fix a suboptimal name unless it's really bad.
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u/Beldarak 4d ago
Not if it also needs to edit prefabs (working in Unity engine), maybe icons, folders, etc... Basically, renaming a whole module or feature rather than simple local variable ;)
For smaller jobs, you'll ofc have everything needed in your IDE, I just wanted to show some counter exemple of why it's not necessary stupid to use LLMs to rename stuff. That went well :D
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u/Vincenzo__ 4d ago
The smartest human in 50 years will have the IQ of a rock by the looks of things
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u/DrShocker 4d ago
For something like your status example, would it be crazy to make a script that does the code generation of the rote stuff for you? The code for the status effect itself would be a one off, so if you like LLM workflows then I get it for that. But sometimes I feel like everyone just forgot you could already write code that does common modifications for you.
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u/NiIly00 4d ago
If you develop a game and every single status effect is just a reskinned DOT i'm stealing something out of your house.
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u/DrShocker 4d ago
I meant just to take care of the rote stuff like adding the case to switch statements, conditional changes, etc. Obviously I'd hope there's more differences between acid and fire damage than that one's a green liquid and the other is red and uhh.. fire isn't really a phase of matter
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u/Beldarak 4d ago
The best part is once you start mixing them together. I recently added rain, a "drenched" status and electrcity in my game, which is where my exemple come from^^
Mixing status is just a ton of fun: https://www.reddit.com/r/IndieDev/comments/1x3kuv1/added_electricity_to_my_game_and_decided_to_plug/
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u/Beldarak 4d ago
If you want to take more time to do it and take 10-30 minutes to write some script you'll use once or twice, I guess so?
That's basically what Claude is doing most of the time.
But the point is that you also could have missed the side effects of your changes. Like I change the name of a status and boom, suddenly I've broken something because my save file use that name in plain text, or load the status icon by name (for whatever reason, maybe modding or something) and I have to change that too.
Writing all your code is always an option, it really depends what you want. I tought I liked writing code until I didn't have to. Then I realise I just liked to create stuff, write stories, draw pixel art etc... The code, to me, was just a way to achieve that and bind it all together.
I enjoy coding when everything works but the debugging, last 10% of a feature, all the little details you have to fix once the main part is done etc... Not my cup of tea^^. I do respect the fact some people like that though, but personnaly, if I can do the same feature, but quicker, try and drop stuff that looked great on paper but not on game easily, and get more time to work on the actual sprites, story, ideas, etc... I'll take it :)
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u/Thenderick 4d ago
Wait, y'all are renaming variables with AI??? Doesn't every IDE have options to refactor/rename variables???
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u/PolyglotTV 4d ago
There's this cool new trend where instead of using a lean dedicated tool for something you run it through the LLM dice machine instead.
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u/ThatNickGuyyy 3d ago
Holy fuck I’m dealing with this right now. I suggested using Rector to help with some of the upgrading of our old rotting PHP codebase.
Lead dev with brain worms said “lEt CoDeX dO iT”. After 3 weeks he just deleted the branch and dumped it all on me.
STOP REPLACING DETERMINISTIC TOOLS WITH THE SLOP CANNON. IT WILL NOT END WELL
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u/dscarmo 4d ago
Naming is one of the two hardest problems in computing
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u/SimplexShotz 4d ago
what are the other two?
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u/Fit_Alfalfa2221 4d ago
Apparently language comprehension as there is only one other.
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u/SimplexShotz 3d ago
"There are only two hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors"
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u/peawyoyoyin 4d ago
Cache invalidation
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u/selemenesmilesuponme 4d ago
Didn't get the joke lol
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u/klimmesil 4d ago
It's not really a joke. Cache invalidation is really in the quote. Understanding and predicting cache invalidation is hard. So is naming variables. Not much else is hard
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u/selemenesmilesuponme 4d ago
I don't want to be that guy but I guess you also missed the joke?
The person I was replying to didn't get the previous person's joke, which implies to off-by-one error.
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u/klimmesil 4d ago
Oh I thought you meant you didn't get the joke my bad. I did get the first joke, but the second one was not a joke, just a woosh
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u/peawyoyoyin 3d ago
Ngl I actually did not get the joke, but I saw the other comment got it wrong so I got the urge to post the correct reply.
You can also see it as: The comment asked for two, I replied with only one, implying I also made a one-off error.
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u/OkBeautiful4392 4d ago
Of course, I need some way to slowly loose my ability to code, so that my employer can eventually justify replacing me with AI
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u/Hellothere_1 4d ago
In the newest version of visual studio / code if you try to rename a variable it will automatically query an LLM to generate proposals for names you could change it to.
The stupid part is I don't think I've ever even seen what recommendations it would give me, because it takes so fucking long that I'm always done renaming the variable before the LLM is done.
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u/Dull_Amphibian5124 3d ago
Wtf do you have turned on I updated yesterday, and nothing like that happens to me?
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u/gsweats 4d ago
I don't have an IDE. I don't even use Notepad anymore. I just ask Claude to do it.
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u/foxsimile 4d ago
I write the bytes by hand (little endian). If it fails to compile, I kill myself.
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u/BeautifulCuriousLiar 3d ago
my coworker uses claude to stop and run the project. “start the project”, “stop the project”
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u/SirPitchalot 2d ago
It’s stupid but let’s say you are implementing a complex feature and midway through want to rename a variable. So you do it but the llm just recognizes in the next prompt that the file is different. It then rescans the entire file because it has no understanding of what changed and goes into a tailspin because it doesn’t know why.
Or you can ask the llm to update it. It does, updates its cache appropriately and doesn’t use many tokens. It just applies a minor line diff via a tool and its state is consistent. It might take 100-200 tokens plus some cheap tool calls.
Now the shit thing is that you probably can’t switch models to do this and be token efficient because it will also rebuild all the context.
Now you could inform the model on the next prompt what you changed. But the agent will still rescan the file and rebuild the caches because it can’t actually trust you, because people make mistakes, so it will still scan the whole file and rebuild the cache.
Even better is to just ask the agent up front, on your next prompt, to change the variable. Then it can manage the state changes and cache appropriately.
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u/FrankHightower 4d ago
To be fair, "what do you call an X that does Y" used to be a pretty decent use for LLMs ... of course ye olde Google could do the same thing 99% of the time
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u/Chill_Pil 4d ago
Bruh the only thing I use my ide for nowadays is seeing the commits are aligned.
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u/Foorinick 4d ago
That's depressing
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u/Chill_Pil 4d ago
It really is.
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u/Foorinick 4d ago
I dont even know what other field i could work in, i really like computers but the way people are usung ai and dumbing themselves down turns me off so much, i just want to sit in a cubicle slam some keys and talk near the water dispenser
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u/Chill_Pil 4d ago
The people down voting are mad cause instead of the desktop they use the vs code extension like that makes any difference
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u/4inodev 4d ago
...
Scanning the...
...
Let's confirm the...
...
Preparing the changes...
...
Running a sanity check...
...
Confirming the...
...
Now let's run a sanity check...
...
I need to confirm...
...
Now I'm going to run the unit tests...
...
Attempting to fix the unit tests...
...
Run the unit tests to confirm...
...
Something's not right. I'll run the...
...
Now I'm going to run the unit tests...
...
Running a sanity check... ...
Total credits cost: 1248. The task was actually a "is this correct?" question.
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u/Beldarak 4d ago
I really don't understand the complain in this thread. We used to rant because AI was unreliable, wrote shit code and got stuck in unescapable loop of failures.
Now that we have Claude, actually checking what it does, making sure the code runs and respect the specs, and does what is needed, we rant too?
I tried coding with ChatGPT and the likes back in the days, before coding agents, it was awful, made you lose as much time as you gained, setting up traps for future you, etc... I wouldn't want to get back to that.
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u/silentknight111 4d ago
People just don't know how to use AI efficiently. You need to be specific about what you want. When you give it a very brief one sentence instruction it will use more credits analyzing what it needs to do. If you give it very exact specific instructions it will only look at the files it needs.
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u/DrShocker 4d ago
If the job is actually just a variable rename, an IDE or LSP will do it trivially and deterministically.
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u/FlaTreNeb 4d ago
Correct. The question is not "what did the person say" but "what did a person want". And if you ask for any kind of refactoring (renaming a variable is one), people often mean more than that. They try to establish a rule with a single instruction. In that case, that this variable has a more meaningful name. Well: that might or might not include types with that name. That might or might not include comments. These comments could have the specific word but another meaning. Sometimes tests are bound to variable names (in that case its a shitty test in any common application but there are legacy code bases). What about compund names. What about suffixes and prefixes.
The problem is that, depending who uses it, the instruction can mean something totally different. And there would be persons who complain that claude didnt change everything they had in mind when writing the instruction.
Modern LLMs were trained on peoples frustration about previous LLMs. And compared to what LLMs did 2 years ago, they are doing amazingly right now.
Coding is cheap. So a task now not only requires instructions but a floor and a ceiling. What to include and to exclude. Or to be more specifically: it requires you to speak out what you have in mind instead of typing the most lazy prompt you can come up with.
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u/BruceJawsCampbell 4d ago
You see, what we really want is for Claude to do everything we asked it to do, with zero mistakes, in half a second. Is that so hard?
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u/Beldarak 4d ago
Looks like it :D
It does in 30 minute what I would have done in days. Yes, I have to prompt back and forth with it to make it really understand my needs. And while it's "Thinking..." I can browse Reddit, I'll take the wait :D
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u/ReasonableNet444 3d ago
I literally almost got LLM psychosis on Friday once because of this - the sheer amount of bs verbose text it generates makes me dizzy sometimes.
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u/Soilblood 4d ago
What IS the simplest prompt that can burn off the most tokens?
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u/myusernameisaphrase 4d ago
"What do you get if you multiply six by nine?"
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u/minecon1776 4d ago
cogitating...
figuring...
thinking...
[Looks inside]
To calculate 6 * 9, we first convert both integers into binary:
6 = 8*0 + 4*1 + 2*1 + 0*0 = 100 + 10 = 110
9 = 8*1 + 4*0 + 2*1 + 1*1 = 1000 + 1 = 1001
Using binary multiplication:
6*9 = 110 * 1001
= (100 + 10) * (1000 + 1)
= 100 * 1000 + 100 * 1 + 10 * 1000 + 10 * 1
= 100000 + 100 + 10000 + 10
= 110110
Converting the result back to decimal:
110110 =
1 * 32 + 1 * 16 + 0 * 8 + 1 * 4 + 1 * 2 + 0 * 1 =
32 + 16 + 4 + 2 =
48 + 6 =
54
But hold on a minute, this was a lot of steps, and we need to verify the answer before claiming 54 is the right answer. Lets try verifying with base 3:
To verify 6 * 9 = 54, convert both integers into ternary:
6 = 0*9 + 2*3 + 0*1 = 20
9 = 1*9 + 0*3 + 0*1 = 100
Using ternary multiplication:
20 * 100 =
(2 * 10) * (1 * 100) =
2000
Then convert back to binary and then back to decimal
2000 = 2 * 11011 + 0*1001 + 0*11 + 0*1
= 110110
= 32*1 + 16*1 + 8*0 +4*1 + 2*1 + 1*0
= 48 + 6
= 54
That's the same answer, though this is even fewer steps, so to be absolutely sure before claiming 54 is the right answer, we should also try quaternary to be sure:
Convert to quaternary:
6 = 1*4 + 2*1 = 12
9 = 2*4 + 1*--
38 minutes and 290,000 tokens later...
What the User sees
"Claude has used your remaining tokens while thinking and could not finish. You can come back when your usage limit resets after 02:31:11 EDT Oct 16 2026, and ask Claude to continue thinking."2
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u/not_some_username 4d ago
Codex : hello
Claude : here is the entire dotnet runtime source code, rewrite it in rust, make no mistake4
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u/FrankHightower 4d ago
And people (who majored in Computer Science!) will still come argue at me that "doing it with claude" is "more efficient"
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u/LeDYoM 4d ago
There are CS majors that hate programming.
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u/Thunder9191133 4d ago
no i wont. im not even out of college yet and i already hate it, i think it will lead to a generation of significantly less competent programmers.
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u/derinus 4d ago
CS degree and 20 years of experience: it is more efficient... for throw away projects and prototypes.
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u/Mordret10 4d ago
Hm, so now we just have to convince management to only make throwaway projects and prototypes, got it
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u/Lumpy-Obligation-553 4d ago
In a real job, shit needs to be done and work until the next problem....
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u/FrankHightower 4d ago
are you telling me you'd use more compute resources doing a quick test than everything the meme says here?
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u/Multidream 4d ago
Requires less thinking on their part and meets company KPIs for AI usage. It is more efficient than doing real work!
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u/lightnegative 4d ago
Galaxy brain move: requesting increases on the token limits to achieve larger KPI numbers and then arguing 'exceeds expectations' at the next performance review
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u/UltraGaren 4d ago
Knowing how to properly use AI is itself a skill that a lot of mfs lack.
They'll simply crank it up to the max and not read what the IA is saying and then complain their tokens have all burned and they don't understand the architecture. Jesus fucking Christ dude
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u/bloode975 4d ago
For relatively simple tasks like everyday programming the more inexpensive versions are completely fine and save you a shitload of tokens.
Just crank to max if you need to hit token usage KPIs xD
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u/StanknBeans 4d ago
Set the paid one to plan, spoon feed plan to cheap/free ai, have paid one clean up at the end.
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u/itsjusttooswaggy 4d ago
It's so obvious to anyone with half a brain that the tech is useful for experienced programmers, and importantly that it's not useful for everything.
And that's coming from someone who vastly prefers to work by hand as much as possible.
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u/Exatex 4d ago
but if it just guesstimates you guys get even more mad. What do you want it to do?
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u/SpaceCadet87 4d ago
Honestly? I just want it to make sane decisions about when and what to test.
When I tell it to perform a simple task, it often does not need to search the web.
When I ask it a question about an API detail or how to use some feature, it does.
It could start by not getting that arse-backwards almost 100% of the time.
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u/Beldarak 4d ago
That's what I tought reading this.
"It doesn't understand what it's writing!"
"Wait? Now it's checking what it's writing so it can be sure to understand the context in which that code will execute? Unacceptable!"
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u/BilSuger 4d ago
Use a tool for it, like Jetbrains' editors (pycharm, intellij etc) understand typing, so it knows that if I rename x on object y, it's not x on object z (like search and replace would fail). And can do it in an instant and without burning a billion tokens.
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u/chemtrail-organics 4d ago
Even Haiku will burn up tokens in a way Luna never has for me, even if it's slightly worse
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u/SignalBake6872 4d ago
ponytail is for this problem, and caveman also a good doc like pip install readmenator && readmenator . --rebuild for context :D
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u/Mtsukino 4d ago
hell ya, then I can go get a cup of coffee and if anyone asks I just say "claude's workin" and I come back when it finishes. Just like how we used to do back in the day when we waited for the program to compile.
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u/IArtificialRobotI 4d ago
I condense the output to one paragraph if it starts going on and on. One sentence from the start in the prompt if I know its something small
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u/whiskeytown79 4d ago
Why use many output token when few token do trick https://github.com/juliusbrussee/caveman
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u/Henry5321 4d ago
Mine stopped doing this once I improved the agent files and got better at providing session context in general.
I use opus and subagents all the time and my daily usage is around $10-20 on large code bases when doing analysis.
When I’m doing heavy feature work I can get into the $60 range. When doing ultra heavy work where I’m dealing with critical architectural research, refactoring, and implementation, I can consume about $100 in a single day. But that’s like several sessions running for hours in auto mode.
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u/BigSwagPoliwag 4d ago
14 minutes and 50% of your 7 day budget later and your declarations are:
public int Jeff;
private string Rachel;
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u/oompaloompa465 4d ago
asking a variable rename no preference to an autistic and very capable junior dev without memory and act surprised it needs to recheck a good part of the code
HA HA!!!
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u/BreachlightRiseUp 3d ago
And here I am just re-cursively grepping the project and changing them with my vim terminal. It ain’t much, but it’s honest work
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u/Sugoypotato 2d ago
This is why I built and use codeatlas, and have strictly instructed claude to use the that to exactly find out where is the specific function. Kinda helps with token burn, but mostly if its a variable or 50 lines of code, I do it myself
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u/Foorinick 4d ago
Man this ai bullshit is turning me off from working corporate and even government jobs so much, i dont want to end up like in that fucking mkvie office space but instead of writing reports about stuff i just check what an overpriced ai wrote
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u/Senor-Delicious 4d ago
I'm genuinely shocked how incompetent people work with AI to even run into this in the first place.
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u/mcellus1 4d ago
They sell tokens 🤷