\n<\/p>\n
January 31, 2026<\/p>\n
3 min read<\/p>\n
Add Us On Google<\/span>Add SciAm<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Software is becoming something you speak into existence<\/p>\n Coding for the rest of us finally feels possible now that tools like Claude Code turn plain English into working software<\/p>\n By Deni Ellis B\u00e9chard edited by Eric Sullivan<\/span><\/p>\n A person holds a smartphone displaying the logo of \u201cClaude,\u201d an AI language model developed by Anthropic, with the company\u2019s logo visible in the background.<\/p>\n Coding is having its GarageBand moment, its Excel moment. A moment like in 2004, when Apple made music production widely available. Or like in 1985, when Microsoft banished the idea of a spreadsheet as paper that required an accountant to calculate every value by hand.<\/p>\n Enter Claude Code, software created by the AI company Anthropic for \u201cvibe coding\u201d\u2014writing code with natural language. It isn\u2019t the first platform to try this, but it is the first to nail the anybody-can-do-this feeling.<\/p>\n Vibe coding platforms abound, and over the past years, I tried several, such as Windsurf and Replit. I was impressed by what they could do but often got stuck on problems that better coders could easily solve. And building websites that matched what I hoped for was challenging.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n What makes Claude Code different is the ease of use and the speed at which it understands problems. I\u2019ve created several websites with the latest version, and each time I hit a snag, I described the problem, and Claude Code fixed it. I\u2019ve used it through different interfaces, and the app offers the most user-friendly experience for \u201cmuggles\u201d\u2014folks with no coding magic.<\/p>\n Naturally there is a rival. One can\u2019t talk about Claude Code without mentioning OpenAI\u2019s Codex. OpenAI was the first company to popularize a large language model (LLM) that turned plain-English instructions into code. GitHub\u2019s Copilot launched in June 2021, but it was built on Codex, which OpenAI released that August.<\/p>\n In 2023 came the plot twist: Codex, which had been steadily evolving, was discontinued. An OpenAI e-mail notice encouraged developers to use GPT-3.5 instead. Coding, it seemed, would be just one skill among many that the AI system would perform.<\/p>\n That\u2019s when Anthropic entered the race with a different vibe. In March 2023 it introduced Claude as a model trained to be \u201chelpful, honest and harmless.\u201d Claude could code, but the early praise wasn\u2019t about fireworks; it was about feel. Users liked that exchanges \u201cfeel like natural conversation,\u201d Autumn Besselman of Quora said in a statement from Anthropic.<\/p>\n Only two months later, Anthropic announced it had \u201cexpanded Claude\u2019s context window from 9K to 100K tokens,\u201d which corresponded to about \u201c75,000 words.\u201d A context window is basically the desk space that allows you to spread out your code and documentation. When Anthropic fed Claude the entire novel The Great Gatsby with one line changed, the model spotted the alteration in 22 seconds.<\/p>\n Over the next two years, Claude\u2019s coding skills dramatically improved. By early 2025, using AI to code was gaining popularity among noncoders, and that February Andrej Karpathy, a former OpenAI researcher, coined the term \u201cvibe coding.\u201d<\/p>\n In May 2025 OpenAI relaunched Codex as \u201ca cloud-based software engineering agent that can work on many tasks in parallel\u201d and made it available in ChatGPT. It also made Codex CLI open source, \u201cfostering more developer goodwill,\u201d according to TechCrunch, thanAnthropic, which issued a takedown notice to a developer who had reverse-engineered Claude Code.<\/p>\n Tensions peaked last August, when Wired reported that Anthropic claimed OpenAI staff were using Claude Code ahead of the launch of GPT-5. Anthropic revoked OpenAI\u2019s access in accordance with its commercial terms, which bar customers from using Claude to \u201cbuild a competing product.\u201d An Anthropic spokesperson told Wired, \u201cOpenAI\u2019s own technical staff were also using our coding tools.\u201d<\/p>\n By January 2026, on X, Karpathy described a \u201cphase shift in software engineering,\u201d admitting, \u201cI really am mostly programming in English now,\u201d while Boris Cherny, an Anthropic staffer, wrote, \u201cPretty much 100% of our code is written by Claude Code + Opus 4.5.\u201d According to Fortune, an Anthropic spokesperson said that Claude Code now writes about 90 percent of its own code.<\/p>\n Though both Codex and Claude Code are powerful, in my experience, Claude Code simply builds websites faster, even fairly complex ones requiring interactive 3D presentations.<\/p>\n Memes have sprung up, evoking the pleasure of using it. People have cited \u201cClaudeholism: The New Addiction of the Century\u201d or asserted that \u201cClaude Code is the opium of the permanent underclass\u201d in reference to the software\u2019s ability to remove the pain of drudgery. And then there\u2019s the cuteness of its progression indicator\u2014verbs like crunching, moseying, perusing, reticulating, discombobulating and zesting. When Claude Code works, it\u2019s sparkling or simmering. Silly as this is, it\u2019s hard not to love.<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" January 31, 2026 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Software is becoming something you speak into existence Coding for the rest of us finally feels possible now that tools like Claude Code turn plain English into working software By Deni Ellis B\u00e9chard edited by Eric Sullivan A person holds a smartphone displaying the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[1558,5495,3389,5557,13100],"class_list":{"0":"post-43335","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-bringing","9":"tag-claude","10":"tag-code","11":"tag-coding","12":"tag-vibe"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
It\u2019s Time to Stand Up for Science<\/h2>\n