AI tends to slow us down because we don't really know what it's good at. Can it write a proper Nginx config? I don't know—let's try. And then we end up wasting 30 minutes on it.
Fully autonomous coding tools like v0, a0, or Aider work well as long as the context is small. But once the context grows—usually due to mistakes made in earlier steps—they just can’t keep up. There's no real benefit of "try again" loop yet.
For now, I think simple VSCode extensions are the most useful. You get focused assistance on small files or snippets you’re working on, and that’s usually all you need.
The context switching cost between coding and AI interaction is substantial and rarely measured in these studies. Each prompt/review cycle breaks flow state, which is particularly damaging for complex programming tasks where deep concentration yields the greatest productivity.
This has been my experience too
Ever since my company made switching to Cursor mandatory, I have not been able to hit any kind of flow. I know my own productivity has plummeted and I suspect many others are as well, but no one is saying anything
I have spoken up once or twice and only been smacked down for my troubles, so I am not surprised everyone else is clammed up