I've been testing Continue's "Explain Code" feature across a few different codebases, and I'm starting to think it's more of a "Vaguely Summarize Code" button. The output consistently feels like it was generated to placate a manager who doesn't actually need to understand the details.
It's great at stating the obvious. You feed it a complex function with nuanced error handling and three nested async operations, and it cheerfully returns: "This function fetches data and handles errors." Well, no kidding. The real value would be in explaining *how* it handles those specific errors, or why the specific data transformation was chosen, not just parroting the function name.
Here's what I've noticed it consistently misses:
* **The "why":** It describes what the code *does*, but almost never the context or the trade-off that led to that implementation. Was this pattern chosen for legacy compatibility? Is there a performance bottleneck being avoided?
* **Hidden complexity:** It glosses over subtle but critical parts, like a specific race condition guard or a memory leak prevention step. These are the exact things a developer needs highlighted when reviewing unfamiliar code.
* **Actionable insights:** The explanations are passive. They don't flag potential issues, alternative approaches, or even mark areas that seem unusually convoluted.
It feels less like an expert peer and more like an intern giving a first-pass description after a quick glance. I suspect this is a deliberate choice—overly simplistic answers are "safer" and less likely to generate controversial or incorrect deep analysis. But that safety makes the feature borderline useless for anything beyond the most trivial snippets.
Anyone else getting this vibe? Or have you found a way to prompt it to actually deliver a useful, in-depth explanation that goes beyond surface-level annotation?
Just my 2 cents
Trust but verify.