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A Head-to-Head Comparison of AI Coding — Round Two Introduction A while back I pitted Opus 4.5 against Kimi 2.5 in a 3D maze runner build-off. This is the rematch. I had hoped to run this round with Fable, but I was a day too late — so Opus 4.8 took the seat instead. The harnesses were native to each model: Codex for GPT-5.5 and Claude Code for Opus 4.8. Same challenge as before: build a complete 3D maze runner from scratch. Opus 4.8 (Claude Code) 00:30 — Claude Code opens by asking me questions about the framework and algorithm to use. 05:20 — Thinking done. It leaves plan mode and starts writing code. 08:51 — Build succeeds; installing Chromium. 09:53 — Running through the maze, it detects graphical issues. 11:04 — Graphical issues appear fixed; it moves on to check for graffiti on the walls. 12:31 — It decides the graffiti should “desaturate in dim corridors,” so it makes them glow more. 14:01 — Running final tests and cleanup; one last production build. 14:42 ...

TL;DR AI Playground User Guide

My better half is an artist and maintains a Wix.com site. For the second time in two years, Wix decided to raise the hosting fees. That’s when I suggested to my spouse that I could rebuild the website and host it on Firebase (where I host most of my projects). I assumed this wouldn’t be a big deal (I was wrong) and started researching ways to use a lightweight CMS with Firebase support. Such a system exists — it’s called FireCMS — and it’s excellent. Before I dive deeper, here’s her original site (no longer a paid Wix site):  Miyuki's WIX site Her instructions were clear: replicate it as closely as possible. So I went to work. I created a product development document with use cases, scope, screenshots from the original site, the required features, and of course FireCMS integration. I used ChatGPT to draft the document, then set up a new Firebase instance, and finally launched the Vibe Coding agent (Claude Code). The process wasn’t too different from my other projects, but what sur...

Back in April, I wrote about the verticalization of coding agents by comparing OpenAI’s Codex and Claude Code . Since then, I haven’t really used Codex — Claude Code just keeps getting better and better. But now there’s a new contender in the mix: Google’s own Gemini CLI , which (as the name implies) is powered by Gemini 2.5 Pro . Gemini CLI is very similar in usage to the other two, with one potential advantage (or at least I hope so): it should be an expert in all things Google and Google Cloud. That’s important to me, since I host everything in Google Cloud. That said, the real trigger for trying out Gemini CLI came from a different direction:  Manus . Manus is a Perplexity-style, AI-powered workflow builder. I’m not entirely sure how to categorize it, but you can prompt it with complex tasks and it delivers structured documents. I’ve used it to create presentations and parts of a business plan, and I’ve found it surprisingly effective. Now, my website was built dur...