Claude AI

I recently subscribed to Claude and have been playing around with it. For experienced developers, its agent mode is absolutely a game changer.

The key is having a solid understanding of how websites and apps are built -- I'd compare it to directing a talented junior developer who knows how to do a lot of things but doesn't always have the whole picture in mind.

For instance, I've been playing Nice Day For Fishing a lot lately and decided to build a web site, ndffhead.com, that catalogues all of the items, NPCs, fish, and quests. I spent some time gathering the data and tried to have Claude build as much of the site as I could based on that data. It made rapid progress in the beginning, but once I started looking at the generated code I noticed very amateurish mistakes.

For example, Claude created each page from scratch instead of using reusable templates, which led to inconsistent headers and footers across the site. To me, if you are building a multi-page website, it is a given that you would have reusable templates or fragments.

Claude also combined all of the code into a single Controller instead of splitting it out by screen or feature.

The site was initially going to have an API for searching. But I eventually scrapped that idea and had Claude develop a client-side search instead using JavaScript and a JSON search index. This cuts down on server costs since it can be statically hosted. I only realized yesterday that it didn't do a thorough job removing the search endpoint as there were still references to the API in the header which caused further issues with search engine indexing. I am still working through that today.

There were other problems too, but those are the main ones. It is possible that I may need to better learn how to use Claude. I recently found a post about creating a CLAUDE.md file which would provide much needed context about what is being built and how to build it without needing to have each request be very detailed.

Despite the challenges I had, Claude significantly cut down the development time for me and I will continue to explore using it for future projects. I do believe that software development is going to change as a result of AI, but I am not afraid that senior-level developers will be replaced any time soon. I also believe that as a result of AI, computer science programs at colleges will have to change to include it in the curriculum. I don't believe that the majority of 4-year graduates will need to know the details of data structures or algorithms anymore. Instead, graduates will need to know how to build websites and apps. Specifically, what are the best practices for architecturing code -- DRY development --, potential security vulnerabilities, how enterprise systems should be built -- observability, logging, multi-system integration, etc. --, and, of course, how best to work with AI agents. Future developers won't just be writing code, they will be an AI collaborate who understands architecture, security, and system design at a higher level.