I've tested this extensively in a workflow (not agentic) context, and you're right, the underlying models are both good at full rewrite of code files, and at doing search/replace.
They've been decent at full rewrite for 2 years. I don't think they were good at search/replace until a year ago, but I'm not so sure.
It's true that the models 2 years ago would sometimes make errors in whole rewrite - e.g removing comments was fairly common. But I've never seen one randomly remove one character or anything like that. These days they're really good.
Main reason agentic harnesses use search/replace is speed and cost, surely! Whole file output is expensive for small changes.
And frankly; we're talking about something kicked off by 60s US and UK, that map in that wiki article could be mistaken for one of the British Empire. Nothing's impossible but it'll take more than a wiki article to give me confidence that sanctions were the primary political force operative here or that the apartheid system was actually the thing at issue. I would chalk it up as unusual circumstances.
When this started it really put me off X - I'd have tolerated, and almost liked the idea, of a freedom of speeech place. But a place that boosts its owners posts... Nope.
I'm out - it's such a big personal diss of me, I'm not interested any more.
I tried Mistral for a bit, and it is so fast everything else feels bad now by comparison. I think there's lots of opportunity for OpenAI, Anthropic to stumble on features and performance.
The spikes in the last 2 years have happened for very short amounts of time. If renewables are working, you don't get a spike, and save loads on this tariff. The small amount of time they're not, you sometimes have to pay more, but not for long enough to matter. It's fundamentally more effective for everyone than the default of buying the insurance of fixed prices.
Have you tried switching to Agile Octopus tariff? My electricity cost has gone down 1/3rd since I did that. I also installed smart radiator thermostats, and knocked about 1/3rd off gas heating cost.
I use that tariff, with no home battery or home solar or electric car. Saves about 1/3rd off my electricity bill. My only behaviour change has been to not run the washing machine 4pm-8pm.
It's great! I assume I'll get hit by a price spike at some point, hasn't happened for a couple of years so far.
They've been decent at full rewrite for 2 years. I don't think they were good at search/replace until a year ago, but I'm not so sure.
It's true that the models 2 years ago would sometimes make errors in whole rewrite - e.g removing comments was fairly common. But I've never seen one randomly remove one character or anything like that. These days they're really good.
Main reason agentic harnesses use search/replace is speed and cost, surely! Whole file output is expensive for small changes.
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