David Gewirtz

Salem

Columnist at CNET

Senior Contributing Editor at ZDNet

CBS Interactive Distinguished Lecturer, ZDNet/CNET columnist, ZATZ founder, puppy daddy. Former UC Berkeley instructor, Mercer professor, CNN and Economist alum

Articles

You can use OpenAI's super powerful AI coding agent Codex for just $20 now

3 days ago | zdnet.com | David Gewirtz

Didem Mente/Anadolu via Getty ImagesOpenAI sent another earthquake rocking across the software engineering world today. This time, it was the X announcement that Codex, its AI coding agent, is now available for Plus tier users. In other words, you no longer have to spend $200/mo to get Codex's programming help. Instead, you can get it for $20/mo, as part of the ChatGPT Plus subscription.
Anthropic's free Claude 4 Sonnet aced my coding tests - but its paid Opus model somehow didn't

5 days ago | zdnet.com | David Gewirtz

Anthropic / ZDNETThe pace of AI improvement fascinates me. What sucked a year ago is at the top of the heap this year. I saw that over the past few months, as both Google's Gemini and Microsoft's Copilot went from the bottom rung on the AI coding ladder to the winner's circle, passing all of my coding tests. Also: How I test an AI chatbot's coding ability - and you can, tooToday, another language model is making the trek up the ladder.
How AI coding agents could destroy open source software

1 week ago | zdnet.com | David Gewirtz

rob dobi/Getty ImagesA couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to use Google's Jules AI Agent to scan through the entire code repository of one of my projects and add a new feature. The AI took about 10 minutes. All told, it took under 30 minutes to use the AI, review its changes, and ship the new feature. At the time, I was wildly impressed. The more I've thought about it, the more worried I've become.
How AI coding agents could destroy open source software

1 week ago | flipboard.com | David Gewirtz

NowMicrosoft Confirms Password Deletion—Now Just 8 Weeks AwayMicrosoft wants to delete passwords for its billion-plus users, now “the password era is ending” and set against the backdrop of hundreds of millions of email addresses and passwords being stolen.
How AI coding agents could infiltrate and destroy open source software

1 week ago | zdnet.com | David Gewirtz

rob dobi/Getty ImagesA couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to use Google's Jules AI Agent to scan through the entire code repository of one of my projects and add a new feature. The AI took about 10 minutes. All told, it took under 30 minutes to use the AI, review its changes, and ship the new feature. Also: Google's Jules AI coding agent built a new feature I could actually ship - while I made coffeeAt the time, I was wildly impressed.
How to set up your own article archiving service - and why I did (RIP, Pocket)

1 week ago | zdnet.com | David Gewirtz

IMAG3S/Getty ImagesNow that Pocket is shutting down, what are those of us who rely on article archiving to do? You could try switching to another cloud archiving service like Raindrop.io, but as nice a service as it is, it's run by just one dude in Kazakhstan. If a billion-dollar company like Mozilla can't be bothered to keep its Pocket archiving service running, it's something of a risk to rely on a lone developer, no matter how talented or well-intentioned.
Life after Pocket: How to set up your own self-hosted article archiving service

1 week ago | zdnet.com | David Gewirtz

OsakaWayne Studios/Getty ImagesNow that Pocket is shutting down, what are those of us who rely on article archiving to do? You could try switching to another cloud archiving service like Raindrop.io, but as nice a service as it is, it's run by just one dude in Kazakhstan. If a billion-dollar company like Mozilla can't be bothered to keep its Pocket archiving service running, it's something of a risk to rely on a lone developer, no matter how talented or well-intentioned.
Google's Jules AI coding agent built a new feature I could actually ship - while I made coffee

1 week ago | zdnet.com | David Gewirtz

Ziga Plahutar/Getty ImagesOK. Deep breath. This is surreal. I just added an entirely new feature to my software, including UI and functionality, just by typing four paragraphs of instructions. I have screenshots, and I'll try to make sense of it in this article. I can't tell if we're living in the future or we've just descended to a new plane of hell (or both). Let's take a step back. Google's Jules is the latest in a flood of new coding agents released just this week.
Google's Jules AI coding agent built a new feature I could actually ship - while I made coffee

1 week ago | flipboard.com | David Gewirtz

NowThe company’s sales in Europe plunged by nearly 50 percent, a sign that Tesla’s brand crisis is worsening. We don’t typically report on monthly sales data for one car company in one market, but this one seems particularly notable given all that’s going on in the world. In another sign that Elon …
Pocket is shutting down - here's how to retrieve what little data you still can

1 week ago | zdnet.com | David Gewirtz

Floriana/Getty ImagesMozilla is shutting down Pocket, and I am not amused. I'm also not a freeloader demanding support for a free account. Over the years, my wife and I have paid almost $1,000 to Mozilla's bookmarking service for secure article storage. Let me give you an analogy. You paid a storage facility to hold physical boxes containing business records. They did their job for years, and you kept paying them.