Unlike many claims that AI works that are clearly bogus, this actually seems quite credible, because TFA describes in detail many problems encountered, which could have easily lead to a failure of the project, if not properly addressed.

There is no doubt that when used in the right way an AI coding assistant can be very helpful, but using it in the right way does not result in the fantastic productivity-increasing factors claimed by some. TFA describes a way of using AI that seems right and it also describes the temptations of using AI wrong, which must be resisted.

More important is whether the productivity improvement is worth a subscription price. Nothing that I have seen until now convinces me about this.

On the other hand, I believe that running locally a good open-weights coding assistant, so that you do not have to worry about token price or about exceeding subscription limits in a critical moment, is very worthwhile.

Unfortunately, thieves like Altman have ensured that running locally has become much more difficult than last year, due to the huge increases in the prices of DRAM and of SSDs. In January I have been forced to replace an old mini-PC, but I was forced to put in the new mini-PC only 32 GB of DDR5, the same as in the 7-year old replaced mini-PC. If I had made the upgrade a few months earlier, I would have put in it 96 GB, which would have made it much more useful. Fortunately, I also have older computers with 64 GB or 128 GB DRAM, where bigger LLMs may be run.