Disagree.
Qwen 3.6 and opencode have built and helped plan entire feature sets such as vectorizing and searching, setting up UI to manage categorized search data. Some test systems around this, etc.
Very usable locally assuming you setup your local tooling correctly and you are an actual programmer who can generally help drive this stuff correctly and not just a vibe coder.
I'm using opencode here's one of the projects I've had it complete - just so you know exactly what it's getting done.
I have a large (300,000k loc) sims-like game that I've hand written over last 3 years.
I have a lot of internal administration tooling that has to be built to manage stuff like icons, NPC brain data, world lore, world actions, all kinds of 3d game data, etc, etc.
One example I had qwen do:
Work with me to plan out a feature for an admin panel to manage searchable vector embeddings for each NPC's personality, this was around 600 loc across 4 files, back-end database, front-end UI logic, and front-end templating.
It made 3 small mistakes I told it to sort out and fix, which it did.
I essentially let it do it's thing while I was working on main game core coding. So I was pretty hands off and it planned things out nicely before-hand and got my approvals before it built it.
I really wouldn't call it "glorified auto complete"
Thanks, I really need to try that today - although with pi.dev =)
I do genuinely think that the future is in local models, the online stuff is 100% VC-powered cash market share grabs that will start failing when the forever loop of billions gets disrupted enough.
But at the same time my attemps at comparing claude code + any local model have been such a clear win towards claude I can't bring myself to use a local model seriously just out of ideology.
Yeah I totally agree on the future of local vs. the VC powered markets.
I also agree the reality is that anthropic/sota models are much faster and much smarter, so if you just want to move fast and have them build for you - I get that these local slow models wouldn't be ideal.
For me, as I said I have a large, super complex primary project that overloads me cognitively, and then backend admin dashboards that are relatively simple and isolated/modular.
Just due to this specific project, local/slow models are fine as I just check in every 15-30 mins or whatever and answer any questions they have while I'm focusing on the main project. So basically I just happen to have an ideal scenario/use-case for local models right now.
Oh and I did have to mess around with model settings and stuff to get things to work well. I also started with Cline which sucked badly, and then open code actually had 3 major bugs 5 days ago where it was almost useless in large code bases (e.g. freezing and locking up your project constantly), but they ship multiple updates every day, and those bugs have been resolved.
So, it's all definitely moving fast and more for side projects or hobbies rather than production I'd say.
Still, I'm quite excited with the progress from a year ago and super hopeful about where it's all headed!
Yes, it is better. They are releasing open models, unlike Anthropic. Additionally other (non-chinese) companies run the open models, so if that is the issue you have options.
This is more a form of commoditizing your compliment as they don't see the model as a product but more like a programming language or other tool that you build products with.
