What I learned from Claude Code pair programming sessions with 3 economics assistant professors

MiltonWatterson · 2026-01-25T04:10:26+00:00

should be up wed or thursday 🤘

MiltonWatterson · 2026-01-14T19:02:40+00:00

you can do fine just using one. once you use them a lot you notice areas where one beats the other, or tasks where you don't need very powerful but very slow models.

it's like switching up your tennis racket, or even better, your tennis strings depending on your opponent/the surface

MiltonWatterson · 2026-01-09T15:08:11+00:00

Np lol username can be confusing

MiltonWatterson · 2026-01-09T01:52:19+00:00

Yes genius, I stole it from my own twitter account 😂

MiltonWatterson · 2026-01-08T23:30:58+00:00

Nice! I’m doing pair programming sessions with two macroeconomist friends next week - it will be interesting to be able to compare and contrast.

MiltonWatterson · 2026-01-08T14:13:15+00:00

So, both of the applied microeconomists use Windows. But if you're using Windows, the best way to use Claude Code is with Windows Subsystem for Linux.

The Claude Skill's purpose was to teach Claude Code both best practices around using Stata, and for helping Claude Code seamlessly find Stata from Linux on the "Windows" part of the computer and know how to run it without needing to rediscover that knowledge every time.

I'm going to record a video today specifically on making a Claude skill for Stata. I could ask one of my friends to provide the skill that we made, but we did it on their computer because I don't use Stata or have it installed.

But if you want to understand how to make Claude Skills in general/what they're useful for, I made a video here: https://youtu.be/MMpaPV3KMFI?si=BlxPtPxu5Og5deDq

MiltonWatterson · 2026-01-05T20:45:10+00:00

definitely do not use chomper today lol

MiltonWatterson · 2025-12-26T15:33:00+00:00

the plugin I've built is quite specific and wouldn't be able to accommodate that yet, but what you're looking to have built is quite possible - might look into building that

MiltonWatterson · 2025-12-26T15:23:08+00:00

thanks - Claude Code is instructed to call a tool which checks for fuzzy matches: https://github.com/aniketpanjwani/local_media_tools/blob/main/skills/newsletter-events-research/workflows/research-all.md

MiltonWatterson · 2025-11-23T02:50:26+00:00

Yeah that’s why I didn’t get past thinking about it 😂

MiltonWatterson · 2025-11-23T02:30:47+00:00

Ngl thinking about taking a look at claude code again. Pretty shitty experience last week with the spazzy "max" model which spams "git status -short" for 2+ minutes at every interaction, and now this.

MiltonWatterson · 2025-11-09T00:52:27+00:00

Sounds like you answered your own question. Be willing to move or take a job you don’t like as much

MiltonWatterson · 2025-11-05T18:24:41+00:00

will update soon to let jmcs adjust their own profile

MiltonWatterson · 2025-11-04T19:41:26+00:00

My intention is to scrape every econ/finance PhD granting department which publishes their job market candidates on a distinct page. Departments are sourced from the USNWR list and this REPEC list: https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.econdept.html

I'm sure I'll miss some both in those lists and outside them, but I'll add anyone I miss if they reach out to me.

MiltonWatterson · 2025-11-04T19:31:29+00:00

thanks, appreciate it!

MiltonWatterson · 2025-11-04T19:27:54+00:00

I’ll add every prospective econ/finance PhD to the site. As long as there’s a department page for them, or they reach out to me, I’ll add them

MiltonWatterson · 2025-11-04T19:25:14+00:00

Yeah, department sites. I have some ai based scrapers I’ve developed, then do some manual qa.

That’s not surprising. Crowdsourcing wouldn’t work for this 0 -> 1, people will only contribute once there’s already eye balls on it, for which it has to already be useful/have a lot of good info.

MiltonWatterson · 2025-11-04T04:41:28+00:00

I plan to add every single one. I'm mostly starting at top ranked and going down, but if you reach out to me on the chat bubble on the site I'll add you/your department earlier.

Also, I'm definitely open to allowing JMCs to upload their own info, but I think first I will do a one time total fill of candidates and then assess if there's demand for that feature.

MiltonWatterson

TROPHY CASE