Claude Vs ChatGPT

[Eduardo-]

I use mostly Claude, the free version, Sonnet 4.6.
But yesterday it wasn't working, for whatever reason at a moment it wasn't working. So I tried ChatGPT.

Well, it started to ask me lot of questions about what I wanted to do. Lot of analysis about what/how/the reach/coverage/etc. of what to do.

After an hour or two, I went back to Claude and it was already working again. I sent the same original question there. It asked a couple of simple questions about how I prefered something and if I agreed to do something in some way, and started working.
It already delivered the result.

ChatGPT on the other side, offered to do something more advanced, that now I'm interested, so from yesterday it is still asking questions, about lot of details, some minor details, some edge cases, some other implementation details. It seems it will make something more professional, it is still discussing with me how to make it better. But we are still chatting. Like maybe easily 4 or 5 yours spent in studying what to do.

At this point you must be wondering what I'm doing.
I have a component that exports FlexGrids, it can be used with FlexGrids of all types. It exports to Excel files.
The issue: it uses a very old 2.1 BIFF format with *xls extension. It is too old and too limited.

So, I needed to replace that with something to write *.xlsx files.

Well, now ChatGPT is still asking if I want to save CellPicture's, and we were discussing how to place the pictures according to cells alignments of the text and pictures in the FlexGrids, things like that. All that of course won't do the Claude approach.
ChatGPT also offered to export as HTML and CSV. I accepted.

What I see is that they are two extremes: one doesn't ask almost anything, and goes and do it assuming lot os things, doing lot of decisions in his own. The other one asks a lot, and so far still didn't deliver any code.
So, which one is better? I don't know. I like to have solutions quickly, but I also want to do the things as well as I can. So, so far I'm inclined to use ChatGPT work (if it delivers at some point).

I guess the same thing happens with people. Perhaps I would prefer a balance. Ask me questions, but try to deduce some without asking.

[wqweto]

Btw, did it mention there is already this for BIFF 12 (i.e. xlsb) support?

It has AddImage method too.

cheers,
</wqw>

[Eduardo-]

Ah wqweto, I commented it about your project, and now it is interested in knowing if it could use it, and it asked some questions:

Does Biff12Writer support cell formatting (font, text color, background color, alignment)?

Does Biff12Writer support row heights and column widths?

Does Biff12Writer support freeze panes?

Does Biff12Writer support autofilters?

Does Biff12Writer support multiple worksheets?

How difficult would it be to adapt the writer to generate XLSX instead of XLSB?

Is the library intended only for writing raw data, or can it generate workbooks with formatting close to what a grid control displays?

I think it cannot go and read, otherwise it wouldn't be asking.

[wqweto]

No freeze panes but it has merge cells for instance. No autofilters too. Targeting XLSX is a complete rewrite.

Apparently the repo is not indexed already so it would be difficult to "teach" it how it works.

cheers,
</wqw>

[Eduardo-]

Thanks wqweto.

Finally it turned out that ChatGPT won't do anything. So I asked it to produce an specification of all we chatted and decided, intended to send it to Claude to actually do it

[Arnoutdv]

I use both Claude, ChatGPT and CoPilot (work related)
ChatGPT and Copilot are most verbose, the come with a solution/piece of code and does suggestions for the next steps.
Claude is straight to point and does a lot less chit-chat

About exporting FlexGrids to Excel.
In the codebank I have a project for creating XLSX files (which are just ZIP files)
The code is quite old and not my most recent version, but does support formatting of cells, comments, fixed/frozen columns/row

https://www.vbforums.com/showthread....7-Excel-Writer

[baka]

I use grok, deepseek and google own AI
cons and pros for each one.
I started using google because when I use my laptop I do not have access to my login (Im lazy) and google its totally free, just enter the AI mode and start asking. and actually it gave me good suggestions on coding.

[yokesee]

I have Claude Pro and it's undoubtedly the best for programming.

[Eduardo-]

I use both Claude, ChatGPT and CoPilot (work related)
ChatGPT and Copilot are most verbose, the come with a solution/piece of code and does suggestions for the next steps.
Claude is straight to point and does a lot less chit-chat

About exporting FlexGrids to Excel.
In the codebank I have a project for creating XLSX files (which are just ZIP files)
The code is quite old and not my most recent version, but does support formatting of cells, comments, fixed/frozen columns/row

https://www.vbforums.com/showthread....7-Excel-Writer

OK, thanks. I remembered I have seen something, I mean yours and wqweto's one.
I already sent the specification and explained some details and now it'll do it, but I have to wait a couple of yours until it will respond again in the free version.
I'll probably will also post mine if I see that it works fine.
OK, "mine", I mean Claude's one

I use grok, deepseek and google own AI
cons and pros for each one.
I started using google because when I use my laptop I do not have access to my login (Im lazy) and google its totally free, just enter the AI mode and start asking. and actually it gave me good suggestions on coding.

I started using Perplexity. It was more or less good, at least for what was available at that time. At some point I started using sometimes Google. It was good. At times it seemed better than Perplexity, other times Perplexity seemed better.
But I had a case were I spent two days trying to do something, and none of these two could provide a solution that worked.
So I tried Claude. Claude was something else, another level, a lot more professional and yes, it solved my problem.
It was about creating a task in the task scheduler without having admin rights.

I have Claude Pro and it's undoubtedly the best for programming.

I watch many videos in Youtube with news about AI, and I saw that in some rankings for programming, Sonnet 4.6 is in first place, in most other rankings Opus is in first place but Sonnet is not far.
In those rankings they use the setting "High". I never tried changing that setting so far, I always used the default "Low".

But yes, I will sign up for the Pro version because soon I'll need to rework a old program and I'm planning doing with it.
So far I didn't need to use AI that much, the free version worked good enough for my needs until now.

But my plan is not just to rework that old program, that is of like 100 forms and 100k LOC, and everything quite old. And I'm not feeling very motivated, but I have to do it. I need to modernize that program.

But what is motivating me more, is if I could develop a VB6 Add-In for doing such things to any program. What do you think? (anybody)
To have an AI integrated in the VB6 IDE in an Add-In that could be configured with any AI: Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, GLM, Kimi, Grok, DeepSeek, whatever, even local models.
It will have to connect via API. I don't know if there is anyone that offers its API for free.
For myself I'm planning to sign up for Claude API.
Opinions? (about this idea of having AI in the VB6 IDE)

[yokesee]

dz32 was working on something similar.
But in my opinion, it uses too many tokens.
https://www.vbforums.com/showthread....Ai-integration
If your project is very large, I recommend you do it in parts, otherwise you'll burn out the session.

[Eduardo-]

dz32 was working on something similar.
But in my opinion, it uses too many tokens.
https://www.vbforums.com/showthread....Ai-integration
If your project is very large, I recommend you do it in parts, otherwise you'll burn out the session.

I saw it, but I think it is to integrate AI into your programs. My idea is to integrate AI in the IDE.

I now need to rework my old program. Instead of investing time in doing the work with AI in some external way, may be more fun to invest time into doing the add-in to do it later in a more friendly way. That's my idea, or maybe my cognitive dissonance... my justification for doing something that I prefer to do over what I have to do .