Mistral Made Me Feel Like It Was 2024 Again. Not in a Good Way.

I just submitted the Mistral hackathon. A few hours ago. I built something, shipped something, and now I have thoughts -- not about what I built, but about the tool I used to build it. This is about Mistral. And I will try to be fair, even though my feelings are mixed. I Want European AI to Win Let me be transparent about where I am coming from. I am Polish. I live in the EU. When it comes to AI, I genuinely want something that is ours. Not out of nationalism -- out of choice. If Mistral or another European model reached the level of Claude or the latest from OpenAI, I would have a real alternative. I would have competitive pressure. I would have options. So I went in with real goodwill. I wanted to see what Mistral could do on a serious project. Some Things Worked. Then the Friction Started. There is a CLI, and there is a vibe coding mode that actually functions. First few prompts? Not bad. I asked, it delivered. Then I started noticing the friction. Small things. A function that almo