> Using anything other than the frontier models is actively harmful
If that is true, why should one invest in learning now rather than waiting for 8 months to learn whatever is the frontier model then?
If that is true, why should one invest in learning now rather than waiting for 8 months to learn whatever is the frontier model then?
I think you (and others) might be misunderstanding his statement a bit. He's not saying that using an old model is harmful in the sense that it outputs bad code -- he's saying it's harmful because some of the lessons you learn will be out of date and not apply to the latest models.
So yes, if you use current frontier models, you'll need to recalibrate and unlearn a few things when the next generation comes out. But in the meantime, you will have gotten 8 months (or however long it takes) of value out of the current generation.
But if you do want to use LLMs for coding now, not using the best models just doesn't make sense.