@Lindon It'll be a continually evolving world for quite a while I think.
You might know all this already but...
There are 2 main choices to make - the coding environment and the AI model that you use within that coding environment.
My preferred coding environment was always an IDE like VSCode, so Cursor, which is a VSCode port, was my obvious first step into this. But lately I've been trying the terminal-based Claude Code, where you don't get tabs with open files or a directory tree, etc. You just get chats and code diffs in one continual terminal window.
If you prefer and IDE try Cursor or Zed (David mentioned it, looks good). The advantage of Cursor is that it comes with the Claude model "built-in", so you don't have to set up API keys etc to get going. Another Cursor bonus is that it seems to absorb some of the AI model cost from your usage. Not sure how that will pan out in time. They can't keep doing that.
Another benefit of using an IDE over a terminal-based approach is that the IDEs keep a chat history of all your work. Meaning in Cursor, I can go back to any historical chat and just keep working on that same task without having to relearn all the context. As far as I know, terminal-based approaches like Claude Code can't do that. When you finish the task and close the terminal tab/window, all the history is gone. You're just left with the resulting code. Personally, I go back and carry on work in previous chats all the time, so I need an environment that allows this.
For the AI models, it sounds like Christoph is pretty set on Claude Opus 4.6 (an Anthropic model) but I've had decent results with the faster and cheaper (meaning not as thorough) Claude Sonnet 4.6 (also Anthropic). I also just had a couple of good Ruby coding sessions with GPT-5.4 (an OpenAI model) so that's another option.
The models are advancing all the time and some models are better for some tasks than others. But unless you want 3 or more AI subscriptions, you're probably better off paying for one that has a decent range mod models. For me, so far, this is paying $20/mo for Cursor so I can access the "built-in" Opus and Sonnet. And even sometimes Haiku (super fast and simple) for non-coding things like writing emails or support docs.
I also pay $20/mo to OpenAI for ChatGPT but now I'm trying out the Codex coding environment that all works within the same $20/mo subscription.
I don't feel like I've simplified anything at all here but it might be useful info for someone cruising by this post 