On the one hand, I agree with this. The chat UI is very slow and inefficient.

But on the other, given what I know about these tools and how error-prone they are, I simply refuse to give them access to my system, to run commands, or do any action for me. Partly due to security concerns, partly due to privacy, but mostly distrust that they will do the right thing. When they screw up in a chat, I can clean up the context and try again. Reverting a removed file or messed up Git repo is much more difficult. This is how you get a dropped database during code freeze...

The idea of giving any of these corporations such privileges is unthinkable for me. It seems that most people either don't care about this, or are willing to accept it as the price of admission.

I experimented with Aider and a self-hosted model a few months ago, and wasn't impressed. I imagine the experience with SOTA hosted models is much better, but I'll probably use a sandbox next time I look into this.

Aider hurt my head it did not seem... good. Sorry to say.

If you want open source and want to target something over an API "crush" https://github.com/charmbracelet/crush is excellent

But you should try Claude Code or Codex just to understand them. Can always run them in a container or VM if you fear their idiocy (and it's not a bad idea to fear it)

Like I said sibling, it's not the right modality. Others agree. I'm a good typer and good at writing, so it doesn't bug me too much, but it does too much without asking or working through it. Sometimes this is brilliant. Other times it's like.. c'mon guy, what did you do over there? What Balrog have I disturbed?

It's good to be familiar with these things in any case because they're flooding the industry and you'll be reviewing their code for better or for worse.