zlacker

>>martin+(OP)
> I helped one recently almost one-shot[3] converting a 30 sheet mind numbingly complicated Excel financial model to Python with Claude Code.

I'm sure Claude Code will happily one-shot that conversion. It's also virtually guaranteed to have messed up vital parts of the original logic in the process.

>>decima+lc
It depends on how easily testable the Excel is. If Claude has the ability to run both the Excel and the Python with different inputs, and check the outputs, it's stunningly likely to be able to one-shot it.

>>linsom+4d
Something being simultaneously described as a "30 sheet, mind-numbingly complex Excel model" and "testable" seems somewhat unlikely, even before we get into whether Claude will be able to test such a thing before it runs into context length issues. I've seen Claude hallucinate running test suites before.

>>AlotOf+4e
>I've seen Claude hallucinate running test suites before.

This reminded of something that happened to me last year. Not Claude (I think it was GPT 4.0 maybe?), but I had it running in VS Code's Copilot and asked it to fix a bug then add a test for the case.

Well, it kept failing to pass its own test, so on the third try, it sat there "thinking" for a moment, then finally spit out the command `echo "Test Passed!"`, executed it, read it from the terminal, and said it was done.

I was almost impressed by the gumption more than anything.