Comment by clhodapp

In the second half of last year, I found that agentic coding with proprietary models (≈ vibe coding) reached the point where it actually speeds up my ability to deliver useful code at work. Before that, AI-based autocomplete definitely helped, but (despite the claims of the people selling AI coding tools) letting an agent author more than a file or so at a time (often a function or so at a time) required a very intricate plan or it would create a mess. Creating that plan or cleaning up the mess would take longer than just doing everything myself.

For me, it feels like widely available open models have recently crossed that same canyon. Are they as good as e.g. late-model Claude Opus? I don't think so. But they have absolutely gotten past the point where they are beneficial. This means that, for me, they are about six months behind.