Opus 5.5 writes code for a six-algorithm sorting race animation
Using Claude Code, Opus 5.5 produced 165 lines of dependency-free JavaScript that race merge sort, quicksort, heapsort and three other algorithms on equal operation budgets, rendered into a 12-second video.
Merge sort put 300 shuffled numbers in order in 4,603 operations. Bubble sort needed 90,571 on the exact same list. I raced six classic algorithms side by side. Every frame each one gets the same budget, where one comparison or one array write counts as one operation. Merge sort: 4,603 Quicksort: 5,838 Heapsort: 8,435 Selection sort: 45,440 Insertion sort: 46,467 Bubble sort: 90,571 The bottom row is finished while the top row still looks like noise. That's n log n against n squared, and at 300 items it's already a 20x gap. On paper, at a million items that ratio grows to roughly 50,000 to 1. Claude Opus 5.5 wrote it in Claude Code: 165 lines of JavaScript, no libraries, each algorithm a generator that pauses after every operation. Renders in 12 seconds.
This post quotes another post: x.com/yumzlef/status/2079898642614268334