This was me. I was a huge AI coding detractor on here for a while (you can check my comment history). But, in order to stay informed and not just be that grouchy curmudgeon all the time, I kept up with the models and regularly tried them out. Opus 4.5 is so much better than anything I've tried before, I'm ready to change my mind about AI assistance.

I even gave -True Vibe Coding- a whirl. Yesterday, from a blank directory and text file list of requirements, I had Opus 4.5 build an Android TV video player that could read a directory over NFS, show a grid view of movie poster thumbnails, and play the selected video file on the TV. The result wasn't exactly full-featured Kodi, but it works in the emulator and actual device, it has no memory leaks, crashes, ANRs, no performance problems, no network latency bugs or anything. It was pretty astounding.

Oh, and I did this all without ever opening a single source file or even looking at the proposed code changes while Opus was doing its thing. I don't even know Kotlin and still don't know it.

> "asking it to fix it."

This is what people are still doing wrong. Tools in a loop people, tools in a loop.

The agent has to have the tools to detect whatever it just created is producing errors during linting/testing/running. When it can do that, I can loop again, fix the error and again - use the tools to see whether it worked.

I _still_ encounter people who think "AI programming" is pasting stuff into ChatGPT on the browser and they complain it hallucinates functions and produces invalid code.

Well, d'oh.

I have been out of the loop for a couple of months (vacation). I tried Claude Opus 4.5 at the end of November 2025 with the corporate Github Copilot subscription in Agent mode and it was awful: basically ignoring code and hallucinating.

My team is using it with Claude Code and say it works brilliantly, so I'll be giving it another go.

How much of the value comes from Opus 4.5, how much comes from Claude Code, and how much comes from the combination?

my issue hasn't been for a long time now that the code they write works or doesn't work. My issues all stem from that it works, but does the wrong thing

This was me. I have done a full 180 over the last 12 months or so, from "they're an interesting idea, and technically impressive, but not practically useful" to "holy shit I can have entire days/weeks where I don't write a single line of code".

> I really think a lof of people tried AI coding earlier, got frustrated at the errors and gave up. That's where the rejection of all these doomer predictions comes from.

It's not just the deficiencies of earlier versions, but the mismatch between the praise from AI enthusiasts and the reality.

I mean maybe it is really different now and I should definitely try uploading all of my employer's IP on Claude's cloud and see how well it works. But so many people were as hyped by GPT-4 as they are now, despite GPT-4 actually being underwhelming.

Too much hype for disappointing results leads to skepticism later on, even when the product has improved.

> Opus 4.5 really is at a new tier however. It just...works.

Literally tried it yesterday. I didn't see a single difference with whatever model Claude Code was using two months ago. Same crippled context window. Same "I'll read 10 irrelevant lines from a file", same random changes etc.

Opus 4.5 is fucking up just like Sonnet really. I don't know how your use is that much different than mine.

I know someone who is using a vibe coded or at least heavily assisted text editor, praising it daily, while also saying llms will never be productive. There is a lot of dissonance right now.