You keep saying you "built" this or that, but did you really?

Of course I don't know for sure if you had any substantial input other than writing a few paragraphs of prompt text and sending Claude some links, because I didn't witness your workflow there. But I think this is kind of what irks some people including myself.

What's stopping me from "building" something similar also? Maybe I won't be as fast as you since you seem to be more experienced with these tools, but at the end of the day, would you be able to describe in detail what got built without you asking Claude about it? If you don't know anything about what you built other than just prompting an AI, in my opinion you didn't actually "build" anything -- Claude did.

There's an ongoing conversation among coding agent enthusiasts right now about the correct verb to use.

One of my favorite options is "directed" - "I directed this". It's not quite obvious enough for me to use it in comments on threads like this though.

I've also experimented with "We built" but that feels uncomfortably like anthropomorphizing the model.

One of the reasons I publish almost all of my prompts and transcripts is that I don't believe in gatekeeping this stuff and I want other people to be able to learn how to do what I can do. Here are the transcripts for me Denobox project, for example: https://github.com/simonw/denobox/tree/transcripts - you can view those with my new https://orphanhost.github.io/ tool like this: https://orphanhost.github.io/?simonw/denobox/transcripts/ses...

Thanks for sharing, I'll take a look!

I don't think it's wise to bend to those with FUD.

I don't say "my tablesaw and I built this table" I say "I built this table"

Based on your comment history it seems like you're making an assumption about my intentions here, but I'll bite anyway.

When you build a table, you use a tool as a means to an end, i.e. you use the tool to cut and shape, but you are fully in control and engaged in the process. When you prompt an LLM, you tell it what to do and it does something for you. How is that not the same as telling someone else to build the table for you? You don't say "I built the table", you say "I got someone else to build the table for me."

I think it's great that simonw responded with some information on his process, that definitely helps provide perspective on how he engaged with Claude to make these projects.

I'm not sure what their "train wreck" comment is alluding to either but as a recent graduate from a Waterloo university I've heard for years about "brain drain" and how most of my fellow graduates leave the area to pursue better careers down in the US or abroad because Canada's tech industry simply does not provide the pay, benefits, career ceiling, etc. as Silicon Valley, for example. This problem has been plaguing Canadian tech for quite a while you can probably find many articles about this on Google.

If it helps I had the same reservation about the course but ended up enjoying uC++. Some things like coroutines, monitors, etc. do not have C++ equivalents yet so there's part of the reason. I found uC++ to be a really useful learning tool.