Hi all,
Anthropic’s current models are famous for generating overwrought metaphorical
constructions like “the load-bearing seam” when referring to something as
simple as an interface. r/ClaudeAI has dubbed this manner of speaking
“Claudish.” Many users (including myself) have elaborate user prompts that try
to tame the model, while others go as far as passing Opus/Fable-generated
output through a competitor’s model to untangle it.
Like many, I find reading Claudish grating and artificial - like the taste of
a Sweet ’N Low packet (aspartame), or listening to a 48kbps MP3 dominated by
compression artifacts.
I’d like to start a discussion about project norms regarding model-generated
comments and documentation in our codebase, largely prompted by the merge of
CASSANDRA-21462 (5b34068).
I open with my gratitude for work to validate and harden cursor-based
compaction. My local measurements land it between 1.7 - 2.4x the throughput of
legacy iterator-based compaction – a stunning improvement that will make
Cassandra faster and more stable. I also appreciate the focus on correctness
and validation in this work, as it surfaced and resolved several serious issues.
The concern it prompts for me is that the commit marks the first introduction
of Claudish into the codebase, and quite a lot of it.
Examples in the first 1/3 of the patch include:
– The zero case is load-bearing rather than an optimisation
– The seam is EVENT-shaped because {@link UnfilteredDescriptor}s are transient
– The row-side analogue of cell reconciliation, is load-bearing in the cursor's
row
– A decoder defect is as likely as on-disk damage here, but that's the same
ambiguity
– The mirror has already drifted from the upstream serializer once
_ The precondition is asserted rather than assumed
– The cursor compaction path and the reference path reach one decision. They
did not always: the cursor carried a hand-mirrored copy
The linguistic style of Anthropic’s models is sharply out of step with comments
in Cassandra’s codebase. Our comments are concise, flat, and matter-of-fact.
Anthropic’s are littered with literary devices, metaphors, dependent clauses,
adverbs, and read like a detective novel. They are also very verbose –
unsurprising given they bill by the token.
I’d like to propose a norm for how we approach comments and documentation in
the codebase. The proposal is that all comments and documentation should
maintain our flat and neutral tone, and read as indistinguishable from human
committer authorship. I’d like for us to normalize watching for this in review
as well to maintain the quality of our in-tree documentation.
I’d also like to propose removing the Claudish in CASSANDRA-21462 and replacing
it with comments and documentation that are in step with how we write.
Interested in others’ thoughts on this.
– Scott
[ This thread’s topic is limited to literary style in comments and
documentation. If there are other topics related to model authorship or the
patch above, please discuss them on a separate thread. ]
