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Then vs Now: What's Changed Since 2023

15 min readAnyone starting their AI learning journey in 2026

The tools that make the journey easier today. If I were starting now, here's what I'd use.

AI Coding Assistants

2023: ChatGPT for coding help, copy-paste into editor. 2026: Claude Code, Cursor, Gemini CLI - AI writes code directly in your IDE.

Then (2023)

ChatGPT + TextEdit + copy-paste

Now (2026)

Claude Code writes directly in VS Code

Resources

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I Rebuilt My Entire AI Podcast App in 14 Days. I'm Terrified.

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Codex with GPT-5.4 vs Claude Code with Opus 4.6 — Why I Now Use Both

blog

Vector Databases

2023-2024: Weaviate, Pinecone - expensive at scale ($600+/month for my use case). 2026: Supabase pgvector - cheap and good enough.

Then (2023)

Weaviate Serverless ($600+/month)

Now (2026)

Supabase pgvector ($25/month)

Resources

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Three months later: Still coding, still learning, still stuck (sometimes)

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AI Frameworks

2023: LangChain from scratch, complex chains. 2026: Many frameworks, templates, and AI can scaffold entire apps.

Then (2023)

LangChain + manual orchestration

Now (2026)

Multiple frameworks + AI scaffolding

Resources

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How I Emerged From Coding Quicksand With an AI Agent

blog

Development Speed

2023-2024: Chatbot v1 took 5+ months. 2025: STRAŦUM took 75 days. 2026: DIALØGUE v2 took 14 days. The acceleration is real.

Then (2023)

Months per feature

Now (2026)

Days per complete product

Resources

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4 Weeks in: Building a 10-Agent Marketing Platform While Taking Naps

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I Completed My Biggest Site Redesign in Years. During Breakfast.

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What I'd Do Differently Today

Skip some foundational courses. Use AI coding tools from day 1. Focus on building, not learning. Ship faster.

Resources

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