Not just yet, they should wait for a little bit. The US isn't done depleting its inventory yet, the US might get itself in a lot deeper yet, and the US population will only detest the war even more given time. All of those things will help China take Taiwan. If Iran gets ugly enough the US population will just have that much less willingness to get involved in another major conflict. 3-18 months for Taiwan (9-18 more likely; China still needs some prep). There's no scenario where China isn't going to successfully take the island after this. They now know the US isn't at all prepared to stand off with them in coastal Asia. It would take years of surge production to get ready, the US doesn't have years re Taiwan.
If China is going in, we'll start to see large signs of that. They'll begin a number of prominent campaigns, including sabotage, propaganda, extremely large supply movements, and so on.
For me, one major issue with md is that it does not support indentation that could be used for collapsing sections.
Most md editors don't support collapsing or folding sections, even though they could. VSCode had this feature where indentation is used as a simple hint to support collapsible sections, but md treats indentation as a code hint.
This is of course subjective, but I would give a lot to have an alternative to Claude Code and the Claude models, but there just isn't anything comparable that works well in an integrated manner for agentic coding.
It's not like I haven't tried. Gemini CLI is still trash (it's probably a bit better now, but I still can't see the edits it proposes, well, etc.). I tried OpenCode, the whole experience was frustrating: the models give up mid-task, they run rampant with actions, the CLI does not offer the level of control and customization Claude Code offers, etc.
I've also tried the other major tools: Codex, Cursor, Cline, Aider, and others, nothing works for me. You are surprised people stick to Claude Code, I am surprised people bother with the other tools.
Maybe it has something to do with how I use the agentic tools: I use the CLI almost exclusively, rarely using the IDE (unless I want to actually code myself). I also almost always approve each and every edit. As such, my number one concern is for the tool to provide me with proper control in a simple and reliable manner: I want a rich permission system that works, and I want to see each proposed edit very clearly in an ergonomic diff format. I want to be able to type, recall, and edit my commands easily too. These are things Claude Code excels at that the other just don't.
The best I've been able to do is to use third-party routers to enable me use Claude Code with almost-SOTA models, and this is the approach that shows the most promise. I'd hate to be beholden to Anthropic's shenanigans.
I think what will eventually help is something I call AI-discipline. LLMs are a tool, not more, no less. Just like we now recognize unbridled use of mobile phones to be a mental health issue, causing some to strictly limit their use, I think we will eventually recognize that the best use of LLMs is found by being judicious and intentional.
When I first started dabbling in the use of LLMs for coding, I almost went overboard trying to build all kinds of tools to maximize their use: parallel autonomous worktree-based agents, secure sandboxing for agents to do as they like, etc.
I now find it much more effective to use LLMs in a target and minimalist manner. I still architecturally important and tricky code by hand, using LLMs to do several review passes. When I do write code with LLMs, I almost never allow them to do it without me in the loop, approving every single edit. I limit the number of simultaneous sessions I manage to at most 3 or 4. Sometimes, I take a break of a few days from using LLMs (and ofter from writing any code at all), and just think and update the specs of the project(s) I'm working on at a high level, to ensure I not doing busy-work in the wrong direction.
I don't think I'm missing anything by this approach. If anything, I think I am more productive.
As someone mentioned on this thread, I can also easily out-engineer Claude Opus, lol its not even close.
Note that I'm not talking about the low-level grunt work (and even with that, its just that it is tedious and time-consuming, but if I had enough time to read through all the docs and stuff, I will almost always produce grunt code of much higher quality).
But I'm more talking about architecture, the stuff of proper higher level engineering. I use Claude Opus all the time, and I cannot even count how many times I've had to redirect its approach that was obviously betraying a complete lack of seeing the big picture, or some egregiously smelly architectural approach.
Also, expressive typing. I use mostly TypeScript, and it will often give up when I try to push it beyond a certain point, and resort to using "any". Then I have to step and do the job myself.
Not even close. There are still tons of architectural design issues that I'd find it completely useless at, tons of subtle issues it won't notice.
I never run agents by themselves; every single edit they do is approved by me. And, I've lost track of the innumerable times I've had to step in and redirect them (including Opus) to an objectively better approach. I probably should keep a log of all that, for the sake of posterity.
I'll grant you that for basic implementation of a detailed and well-specced design, it is capable.
> Iran has been helping arm Russia, and evade sanctions
Not sure this bit makes sense. The current occupant of the white house is firmly in the camp of Russia; that is plain for all to see. In fact, the current war is driving up oil prices and thus actually helps Putin, which may be intended. They are also lifting sanction on Russia.
He's not exactly in their camp. I hate to invoke Hanlon's Razor because a lot of what he does is malice rather than stupidity, but on Russia he has been inconsistent in a way that doesn't suggest that he's just following orders.
If he really wanted to just give up Ukraine, he could have. It's not as if he's afraid to piss off our allies. There's no 4D chess going on.
He likes Russia. He admires their strongman. He wants to be one too. He doesn't want to just give up Ukraine, but neither does he care what happens to it. Like Putin he's happy just to make everyone else deal with his random behavior.
He has a ton of advisers with conflicting goals. Some of them really do want to take down Russia, or prolong its involvement in Ukraine to distract them. Any explanation for this war is the sum of those conflicting advisors.
It's often said that he does whatever the last person in the room wants. I don't think it's quite true, but it's not way to understand how his contradictory actions come about.
reply