Why does it matter if Claude Code opens in 3-4 seconds if everything you do with...

RohMin · 2026-02-05T18:47:10 1770317230

I guess with ~50 years of CPU advancements, 3-4 seconds for a TUI to open makes it seem like we lost the plot somewhere along the way.

strange_quark · 2026-02-05T19:06:07 1770318367

Don’t forget they’ve also publicly stated (bragged?) about the monumental accomplishment of getting some text in a terminal to render at 60fps.

jama211 · 2026-02-06T04:35:56 1770352556

So it doesn’t matter at all except to your sensibilities. Sounds to me that they simply are much better at prioritisation than your average HN user, who’d have taken forever to release it but at least the terminal interface would be snappy…

barnabee · 2026-02-06T08:59:09 1770368349

Some people[0] like their tools to be well engineered. This is not unique to software.

[0] Perhaps everyone who actually takes pride in their craft and doesn’t prioritise shitty hustle culture and making money over everything else.

azinman2 · 2026-02-06T16:15:02 1770394502

Aside from startup time, as a tool Claude Code is tremendous. By far the most useful tool I’ve encountered yet. This seems to be very nit picky compared to the total value provided. I think y'all are missing the forrest for the trees.

nsingh2 · 2026-02-06T16:43:24 1770396204

Most of the value of Claude Code comes from the model, and that's not running on your device.

The Claude Code TUI itself is a front end, and should not be taking 3-4 seconds to load. That kind of loading time is around what VSCode takes on my machine, and VSCode is a full blown editor.

barnabee · 2026-02-07T11:59:08 1770465548

It’s orders of magnitude slower than Helix, which is also a full blown editor.

When all your other tools are fast and well engineered, slow and bloated is very noticeable.

barnabee · 2026-02-07T11:57:24 1770465444

It’s almost all the model. There are many such tools and Claude Code doesn’t seem to be in any way unique. I prefer OpenCode, so far.

wahnfrieden · 2026-02-05T18:16:31 1770315391

Because when the agent is taking many seconds to minutes, I am starting new agents instead of waiting or switching to non-agent tasks

mbesto · 2026-02-05T19:53:22 1770321202

This is exactly the type of thing that AI code writers don't do well - understand the prioritization of feature development.

Some developers say 3-4 seconds are important to them, others don't. Who decides what the truth is? A human? ClawdBot?

jama211 · 2026-02-06T04:37:28 1770352648

The humans in the company (correctly) realised that a few seconds to open basically the most powerful productivity agent ever made so they can focus on fast iteration of features is a totally acceptable trade off priority wise. Who would think differently???

mbesto · 2026-02-06T16:18:17 1770394697

This is my point...

jama211 · 2026-02-07T17:55:21 1770486921

You kinda suggested the opposite

sumedh · 2026-02-06T08:17:23 1770365843

> Some developers say 3-4 seconds are important to them, others don't.

Wasnt GTA 5 famous for very long start up time and turns out there some bug which some random developer/gamer found out and gave them a fix?

Most Gamers didnt care, they still played it.