> Fable is a general purpose model for use in regular chat, analysis, as well as coding

This is a forum filled with experts. Putting marketing aside, in a forum like this, it is most useful to assess models according to the toughest problems in the domain they were specifically refined on. For DeepSeek, that's math. For Claude, that's programming. Gemini and ChatGPT are generalist. Yes, you can use every model for anything you like. But Fable is a bit special, it's very expensive, and very clearly designed for particular types of tasks.

> Fable is just as prone to moronic mistakes as Opus was.

"Just as" is up for debate, but yes, all models are capable of moronic mistakes. That's not helpful information though.

> Codex is still a better model

You're comparing agentic workflows, which relies on a lot more than just the underlying model. It sounds like you're using it like a precision instrument, which is great! It's very different compared to my use cases though, and the ones that Fable seems to excel at. I'm using it for scientific computing, and you really, really want it to one shot a solution. It's either the right algorithm for the task, or the wrong one. So for the hardest problems, it needs to successfully implement a solution in effectively one shot. I use Codex too, but it's often too careless for the delicate tasks. If it gets it wrong, it is really hard to steer it back. You have to start from scratch.

> Bad engineers think Claude is better because it writes more lines of code and is more "proactive".

Think you missed the mark on this one. Not really an engineer, have as much experience as you do in my job. A solution to my problems comprises few lines of code. Fable actually gets it right, first time, every time (so far), but this is with a very long prompt and a bunch of attachments. No other model has done this for me. Not shilling for Anthropic, just impressed. This isn't particularly subjective for me; it is quantitatively measurable.

Don't assume everyone using AI is going to have the same experience you have, or the same types of use cases. And please don't assume that because others have different experiences that it makes them "bad".

Also, Claude has always been mediocre at creative tasks. For your line of work, I would have already recommended Codex hands down.