my recent experience with flash and using it to prototype a c++ header i was developing:

- it was great to brainstorm with but it routinely introduced edits and dramatic code changes, often unnecessary and many times causing regressions to existing, tested code. - numerous times recursion got introduced to revisions without being prompted or without any justified or good reason - hallucinated a few times regarding c++ type deduction semantics

i eventually had to explicitly tell it to not introduce edits in any working code being iterated on without first discussing the changes, and then being prompted by me to introduce the edits.

all in all i found base chatgpt a lot more productive and accurate and ergonomic for iterating (on the same problem just working it in parallel with gemini).

- code changes were not always arbitrarily introduced or dramatic - it attempted to always work with the given code rather than extrapolate and mind read - hallucinated on some things but quickly corrected and moved forward - was a lot more interactive and documenting - almost always prompted me first before introducing a change (after providing annotated snippets and documentation as the basis for a proposed change or fix)

however, both were great tools to work with when it came to cleaning up or debugging existing code, especially unit testing or anything related to TDD