2x, not 10x: coding with LLMs in 2026

Something I've learned about myself over the past 6 months is that if I ever discover Harry Potter is nonfiction and magic is real, my reaction will be approximately "OK that's interesting, but is this magic stuff good for anything more complex than writing unit tests?" LLMs have certainly passed that threshold of usefulness, though as of July 2026 and based solely on my own direct observations,…