AI Accelerates Development: How $200 Turned Four Days into Four Years of Productivity

Image: JoeyCheung/iStock/Getty Images Plus – Symbolizing the rapid pace of AI-driven innovation.

David Gewirtz, a computer scientist and ZDNET contributor, just shattered his personal productivity ceiling. By integrating OpenAI’s Codex into Visual Studio Code via a $200/month ChatGPT Pro subscription, he developed four premium WordPress security add-ons in 96 hours—work that historically took him four years to accomplish. This isn’t hype; it’s a case study in how AI is rewriting development workflows.

The Context-Switching Tax

For over a decade, Gewirtz maintained open-source WordPress plugins as a side gig. With only 2–4 uninterrupted coding blocks annually, each add-on took roughly a year. The bottleneck? Context-switching—re-acclimating to codebases and tools after months-long gaps drained momentum. "I’d spend days just regaining familiarity," he notes. His output: 10 add-ons in 10 years.

Codex in VS Code: The Game Changer

Upgrading to ChatGPT Pro unlocked continuous access to Codex, sidestepping usage throttles that plagued lower tiers. The AI integrated directly into Gewirtz’s IDE, allowing real-time collaboration:
- Iterative prompting replaced monolithic specs, with Gewirtz directing Codex through micro-tasks like UI tweaks or logic hooks.
- Error recovery became frictionless: "When Codex veered off-track, undoing mistakes took seconds," he explains.

The Four-Day Sprint

Day 1: Site Analysis Tool

Built a visitor-tracking dashboard logging logins, bots, and threats—complete in one day. Previously, this alone took months.

Day 2: Scraping Mitigation Tool

Implemented anti-AI-crawler defenses using Really Simple Licensing (RSL) standards and active firewall rules.

Day 3: IP Blocking System

Added IPv4/IPv6 support with proxy detection and a UI displaying blocked IPs in exponential notation for massive ranges.

Day 4: Guest Access Control

Created token-based temporary access links—a long-requested feature deferred for years.

Why This Matters Beyond One Developer

• Eliminating Friction: AI collapses the cognitive tax of sporadic development, enabling "weekend sprints" for complex projects.
• New Bottlenecks: Post-build tasks—testing, documentation, marketing—now dominate timelines. Gewirtz estimates promotion will outpace coding time.
• Democratization: Tools like Codex could empower time-constrained developers to ship products faster, though human oversight remains critical to correct AI missteps.

"Any free weekend could now yield a shippable product," Gewirtz observes. "But the real win? Transforming scarcity into opportunity."

As AI handles rote coding, developers must hone skills in prompt engineering and system design. The era of AI-augmented development isn’t coming—it’s here, reshaping how we measure progress itself.

Source: David Gewirtz for ZDNET