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saberience | on: Claude Fable is relentlessly proactive
And Fable is still worse than Codex.

I use both and the only thing (as always) that I will use Claude for is UI design.

Opus 4.8 and now Fable are still both worse at actually getting the job done than the Codex model. Claude models write FAR too much code when it's not needed, they burn far too many tokens, when they are not needed, write un-necessary tests, write plans which are 5 pages longer than are needed, etc. etc.

Have you actually compared code quality and plan quality versus Codex? It's demonstrably worse.

solenoid0937 | parent | next
I don't know what problems you're working on but Fable is not just better, it is a step change from GPT 5.5 in my experience. It feels at least one major model generation ahead.
ModernMech | root | parent | next
One Hacker News commenter says it's worse, another retorts it's a step change and even includes emphasis! Will the first commentor retort back that it's been a double dog step change in the opposite direction? Can't wait to see how this comment thread unfolds!
lossolo | root | parent
It doesn't for me. I use Fable to make plans, then give them to GPT 5.5 to review, and it always finds flaws and edge cases that Fable misses (some are really critical). It was the same with Opus 4.8. I'll admit it finds a bit fewer issues now, but Fable feels more like an incremental improvement than a major generation ahead.
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elbear | parent | next
Curious, which model do you use for Codex? I'm very happy with the solutions '5.5 high' finds. It's like it understands exactly what I mean and it also anticipates all sorts of situations. Before I used '5.5 medium' for some time and it was a bit underwhelming. It may sound funny but it's like it didn't care that much to do a good job.
saberience | root | parent
I use GPT 5.5 High Fast, I often benchmark versus Fable (and previously did versus Opus) and it's night and day.

Claude still (and has always) writes far too much code to fulfill a given spec or plan. It misses edge cases and is generally far too verbose.

Claude also is (and even more so with Fable) super tokenmaxxing, i.e. it seems tuned to use the max amount of tokens per task, whereas Codex will simply get your job done as you specified with the minimum fuss and tokens.

Codex feels way more steerable and just more "professional" as though I'm working with a seasoned engineer, versus someone smart but over excitable, like a super smart associate engineer.

kolinko | parent | next
What are your harnesses? Do you have the same skillsets/tools/etc for both?
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felixgallo | parent
In my experience writing about 50 programs with fable, opus, and GPT, fable is a significant step change better than opus which is significantly better than GPT. We must be doing different things.
zeroonetwothree | root | parent | next
From what I’ve seen all three are close enough that I would be hard pressed to pick one. It seems to matter much more how I prompt than which of the three I am using.
saberience | root | parent
I'm writing low-level Rust, distributed systems, also sandboxing tech which has to be secure and performant.

The only thing I have Fable do now is create UIs or otherwise front-ends for systems where correctness doesn't matter as much.

Anthropic models lead at making nice looking UIs for sure, but when it comes to making sure my Rust code is actually 100% correct and uses 1% of CPU most of the time, Codex is king.

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