Gemini CLI

> That’s why we’re introducing Gemini CLI

Definitely not because of Claude Code eating our lunch!

And since they have essentially unlimited money they can offer a lot for free/cheaply, until all competitors die out, and then they can crank up the prices

Yea, i'm not even really interested in Gemini atm because last i tried 2.5 Pro it was really difficult to shape behavior. It would be too wordy, or offer too many comments, etc - i couldn't seem to change some base behaviors, get it to focus on just one thing.

Which is surprising because at first i was ready to re-up my Google life. I've been very anti-Google for ages, but at first 2.5 Pro looked so good that i felt it was a huge winner. It just wasn't enjoyable to use because i was often at war with it.

Sonnet/Opus via Claude Code are definitely less intelligent than my early tests of 2.5 Pro, but they're reasonable, listen, stay on task and etc.

I'm sure i'll retry eventually though. Though the subscription complexity with Gemini sounds annoying.

yeah we already seen this with gemini 2.5 flash. Gemini 2.0 is such a work horse for API model with great price. Gemini 2.5 flash lite same price but is not as good except math and coding (very niche use case for API key)

I find it hard to imagine that any of the major model vendors are suffering from demand shortages right now (if that's what you mean?)

If you mean: This is "inspired" by the success of Claude Code. Sure, I guess, but it's also not like Claude Code brought anything entirely new to the table. There is a lot of copying from each other and continually improving upon that, and it's great for the users and model providers alike.

> It would be too wordy, or offer too many comments

Wholeheartedly agree.

Both when chatting in text mode or when asking it to produce code.

The verbosity of the code is the worse. Comments often longer than the actual code, every nook and cranny of an algorithm unrolled over 100's of lines, most of which unnecessary.

Feels like typical code a mediocre Java developer would produce in the early 2000's

I've found that Gemini 2.5 Pro is pretty good at analyzing existing code, but really bad at generating a new code. When I use Gemini with Aider, my session usually went like:

    Me: build a plan to build X
    Gemini: I'll do A, B, and C to achieve X
    Me: that sounds really good, please do
    Gemini: <do A, D, E>
    Me: no, please do B and C.
    Gemini: I apologize. <do A', C, F>
    Me: no! A was already correct, please revert. Also do B and C.
    Gemini: <revert the code to A, D, E>

Whereas Sonnet/Opus on average took me more tries to get it to the implementation plan that I'm satisfied with, but it's so much easier to steer to make it produce the code that I want.

> Feels like typical code a mediocre Java developer would produce in the early 2000's

So, google's codebase

ai power users will drop shit immediately, yes they probably have long term contracts with companies but anyone seriously engaged has switched to claude code now (probably including many devs AT openai/google/etc.)

If you don't think claude code is just miles ahead of other things you haven't been using it (or well)

I am certain they keep metrics on those "power users" (especially since they probably work there) and when everyone drops what they were using and moves to a specific tool that is something they should be careful of.

When I use amazon-q for this, I make it write a plan into a markdown file, then I clear context and tell it to read that file and execute that plan phase by phase. This is with Sonnet 4.

Sometimes I also yeet that file to Codex and see which implementation is better. Clear context, read that file again, give it a diff that codex produce and tell it do a review.

You were intimate with that?

I will never understand this kind of snark comment.

What are they supposed to do?

“Oh no, they’ve released CLI tool before us! It’s game over, we can’t do it too, we need to come up with something else now!”