We tried a few agentic coding tools at work, but they didn't really help.
Along came a project that required us to build a custom harness. One day we added some very basic coding tools to the harness at a whim, and it just immediately (and surprisingly) blew away everything we'd tried.
Now we do most coding through that, and it's a clear productivity boost (2x?). It still requires hand holding and review, and some amount of manual fixing.
But being able to build things much faster is a lot of fun.
We tried a few agentic coding tools at work, but they didn't really help.
Along came a project that required us to build a custom harness. One day we added some very basic coding tools to the harness at a whim, and it just immediately (and surprisingly) blew away everything we'd tried.
Now we do most coding through that, and it's a clear productivity boost (2x?). It still requires hand holding and review, and some amount of manual fixing.
But being able to build things much faster is a lot of fun.