Every few months a new model tops the benchmarks. It is tempting to chase the leaderboard. But the model I reach for daily is not the strongest on paper. It is the one that fits the shape of the work I actually do.
Most of my work is small edits inside an existing codebase. A model that is fast, cheap, and good at continuation beats a model that is brilliant at one-shot party tricks.
What shapes my choice
- Speed of the editing loop
- Cost across a long session
- Quality of continuation, not just generation
- How well it reads existing structure
Pick the model that fits the shape of your work. Benchmarks measure something, but not the thing that matters most at the keyboard.
