How AI Coding Makes Developers 56% Faster And 19% Slower
The New Stack, Monday, February 9th, 2026
The flow rate of change means we don't have all the answers.
There's a growing body of research around AI coding assistants with a confusing range of conflicting results. This is to be expected when the landscape is constantly shifting from coding suggestions to agent-based workflows to Ralph Wiggum loops and beyond.
The Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland has a drop of 250 metres and a flow rate of 180-300 cubic metres per minute (enough to fill about 1,500 bathtubs). This is comparable to the rate of change in tools and techniques around coding assistants over the past year, so few of us are using it in the same way. You can't establish best practices under these conditions; only practical point-in-time techniques.