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I spent $20 on Codex and got 24 days of coding work done in 6 hours - but there's a big catch

Professional coders are paying hundreds monthly for AI assistance. Can a $20 ChatGPT Plus plan with Codex access rival these premium tools? I decided to find out, and 16x'ed my programming output in the process.

Claude Code is the pair programming assistant model specifically designed by Anthropic for coders, and is often preferred for its planning and reasoning capabilities. But work like I'm trying to get done, on a complex security product with a large installed base, still requires the knowledge and skill of a human programmer. In other words, not only may AI pair programming cut off entry-level gigs, it may also price out all but the corporate coders from using tools like Codex at anything resembling full-time intensity.

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