Claude's code comments – too much or just enough?

A Hacker News user reports that Anthropic's Claude AI assistant generates verbose code comments, prompting debate among engineers about whether the comments are excessive or useful. The user asks whether Claude's commenting style serves a purpose for future agent-driven code or is merely stylistic, noting that some engineers have instructed Claude to avoid comments unless strictly necessary.

Has anyone else noticed that Claude leaves a lot of large code comments sprinkled throughout its work? Some of my meat-based engineers have taken issue with it and directed Claude to never leave comments unless strictly necessary, but I want to know what others think. Personally, I write and read a lot of code comments so I’m confused about why these specific comments are so offensive to my fellow engineers. I have two questions: 1. Why does it do this? 2. Do you have feelings about it? Is the agent leaving breadcrumbs for other agents? Do they improve the output of future agent-driven code or is it just a stylistic choice? I don’t want to devolve into a discussion about the purpose of code comments at-large. Instead I’m wondering if there’s a purpose behind the specific comments that agents leave Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49078710 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49078710 Points: 2 Comments: 0