Tools like Claude, which treat code as flat text with search heuristics, are more effective for code manipulation tasks than traditional static analysis tools.

Maybe the weirdest thing about claude code and such is how an engine that just can understand flat text and has some good search heuristics is a much stronger tool for so many code manipulation tasks than all the static analysis and other tools with much more "rigorous" foundations that have been build over the past 50 years. "Code is just text" has a history of winning over smarter tool representations since Unix and emacs killed all the structure editors. Its victories continue.

Maybe the weirdest thing about claude code and such is how an engine that just can understand flat text and has some good search heuristics is a much stronger tool for so many code manipulation tasks than all the static analysis and other tools with much more "rigorous" foundations that have been build over the past 50 years. "Code is just text" has a history of winning over smarter tool representations since Unix and emacs killed all the structure editors. Its victories continue.