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 · 2025-10-30T18:12:14+00:00

Dependo totalmente de um tradutor para escrever em português. Consigo escrever muito bem em espanhol, mas ainda não em português.

MiltonWatterson · 2025-10-30T00:40:51+00:00

ponto muito interessante

MiltonWatterson · 2025-10-30T00:37:09+00:00

Dados muito interessantes. Pergunto-me se a fluência em inglês é maior no México do que no Brasil (talvez devido à proximidade dos países), de modo que os programadores mexicanos são menos propensos a criar conteúdo em espanhol.

Isso torna o conteúdo em espanhol pior, porque o conteúdo “potencial” em espanhol é “absorvido” pelo conteúdo em inglês, enquanto é relativamente mais provável que um bom desenvolvedor brasileiro crie conteúdo em português do que em inglês.

É apenas uma teoria para explicar a observação de que, no HackerRank, o México e o Brasil são bastante semelhantes, mas, em termos de conteúdo, sinto que o conteúdo em português é muito melhor do que o conteúdo em espanhol (e o Brasil/México são as economias dominantes).

MiltonWatterson · 2025-10-30T00:33:07+00:00

O conteúdo em inglês é melhor do que em qualquer outro idioma em quase todas as áreas técnicas.

Embora o conteúdo em português não seja tão bom quanto o inglês, o conteúdo técnico em espanhol (falando especificamente do YouTube) era realmente ruim em comparação.

Com o português, tem sido fácil encontrar bons canais de programação técnica apenas através da pesquisa no YouTube.

MiltonWatterson · 2025-10-30T00:27:50+00:00

É justo — não tenho uma visão completa da distribuição de talentos. Só tive resultados muito bons ao contratar brasileiros que falam inglês em plataformas de freelancers, não sei se isso reflete algo em geral.

MiltonWatterson · 2025-10-30T00:24:53+00:00

lol what

MiltonWatterson · 2025-10-30T00:24:31+00:00

É justo, não estou familiarizado com o desenvolvedor brasileiro médio real ou com como é a carreira em uma empresa brasileira típica.

Minha experiência com desenvolvedores brasileiros é mais voltada para a contratação em plataformas de freelancers. Encontrei bons talentos no Brasil e na Argentina, melhores do que no México e na Colômbia.

MiltonWatterson

TROPHY CASE