TL;DR: I spent a solid month “pair programming” with Claude Code, trying to suspend disbelief and adopt a this-will-be-productive mindset. More specifically, I got Claude to write well over 99% of the code produced during the month. I found the experience infuriating, unpleasant, and stressful before even worrying about its energy impact. Ideally, I would prefer not to do it again for at least a year or two. The only problem with that is that it “worked”. It’s hard to know exactly how well, but I (“we”) definitely produced far more than I would have been able to do unassisted, probably at higher quality, and with a fair number of pretty good tests (about 1500). Against my expectation going in, I have changed my mind. I now believe chat-oriented programming (“CHOP”) can work today, if your tolerance for pain is high enough.