For reference, I come from a limited coding background. Mostly front-end but some experience with back-end. All of it Javascript. I know, I know…but it was how I started to learn. I took classes for fun and to improve my skillset for work but I just never got good enough or found time to get good. I just was NOT going to make it as a developer. Despite my desire to create cool things and useful tools I just was not cut out for it. Enter Claude Code. I had been getting ads for it everywhere so I tried the free web application and asked it to make a card game I used to play with my friends back in high school. It kind of worked, albeit not very well. And after working on it for over two hours I ran out of tokens. I decided to look under the hood and saw the code – an absolute disaster, the stereotype of AI vibe coded slop was in front of me. Nothing properly labeled; odd file names; it just was all unreadable. Maybe Claude Code was not actually that good. However, I thought to myself “I’m just not good, maybe I should research this tool a little bit.” I watched some Youtube Videos and learned how Boris Cherny used it and it’s changed my whole experience. I can see how professional developers no longer hand-code anything anymore. They just tell Claude what to do, check its work, and then let it do its thing. I bought into the Pro Plan and have been making so many WORKING apps. They won’t be the next unicorn SaaS app but my point is I’m having a lot of fun, enjoying “coding” again because I get to be creative and solve problems as I see fit. With only a few days of learning how to really use Claude it works so, so amazingly well. Bravo, Anthropic and Boris Cherny. The code is clean, readable, and does exactly what I expect most of the time. If it doesn’t I iterate until it’s right. I only can see myself getting better from here. Three things have improved my workflow with it immensely: Writing a good CLAUDE.md file. Keeping it short and concise keeps Claude on track. There are tons of great resources out there on how to write a useful file. One major rule I have is to concisely summarize all the changes made, add, and save them in a SUMMARY.md file so Claude can refer back to it later if needed. Context is eating all of your tokens. Seriously, after it finishes a task “/clear” your Claude Code chat. If the task was small enough and it didn’t get it right I will refine my answer and it gets it right 9/10 times. And, it can always refer back to your Summary markdown file. When getting started, or implementing a big and new feature use Plan mode. A lot of people advocate using plan mode before every step, which I’m sure there’s merit for, but for general small fixes “Ask before edits” mode does the job form. In Plan mode trying to clearly define your project without adding too many details is key. This is my new favorite tool ever. The world is changing fast and the speed at which new technologies and applications being created is insane. Unfortunately this is going to put many, many skill developers and other people out of a job, which sucks. But for me, and average guy with only a little experience it’s great. ILY Claude Code. And I hope you all do too. submitted by /u/kosherbacons
Originally posted by u/kosherbacons on r/ClaudeCode
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