JavaScript Developer’s Post

unnecessary social media drama. there's nothing that stops anyone from practicing coding, this person included..

Yeah, my wife could never understand the thrill of trying to solve a problem, failing, failing, failing... until it finally clicked and everything started working perfectly. It's like that moment in the Imitation Game where they finally crack Enigma - I tried to tell my wife - whatever joy and relief you think they're feeling, multiply it by 10. Sadly, those moments will become fewer and fewer. We used to be master wood workers, feeling the grain of the wood, chiseling, sanding, smelling the cedar chips. Now we're increasingly shop foremen, up on the catwalk, sipping our coffee. Saying, "Yep, going smoothly." (Now I wonder if we've become Lumbergh.)

The next generation wouldn't get to experience what it felt like going over stack overflow and finding one tiny comment that resolved your issue when the accepted answer didn't work

Sad 😢

Agreed. Programming used to be a mental workout that excited the brain. Now it's mostly tension, the rush to ship features with AI because managers won't wait, and we're no match for its speed.

I had an existential crisis a few weeks ago because of that. Working with AI is great, it improves performance and all that stuff, but at the same time, it feels like everything I love about programming, like the joy of finding a solution, the lows of not knowing what is happening, and the dopamine hit when it all finally works... it felt like all of that was gone. I'm still figuring out how to get the same pleasure with AI as I did without it. For people like me, the problem isn't 'there's no code anymore', it's more like 'the pleasure I usually get from working is probably gone forever,' and it's scary. But I think I'm starting to find ways to actually enjoy working with AI

The best part of coding was taking time to think, which I feel now we are putting for writing prompts instead. I also miss that...

Wake up at 03:00 with the bug fix and debating whether to solve it now or in the morning. 😀 Those were the days!!! #itwasbetterwhenitwasworse

Now I don’t have to look for bugs at line 6000 for a function with only 67 lines.

I still write plenty of code. The amount of time it takes me to prompt an agent with sophisticated requirements, is just a tad less time spent than writing it myself. So I just do it. There are also lots of patterns that AI isn't well-trained on, since for some things, zero devs agree or publicly share their source. Library-specific stuff can be tough to handle, too. Agents are awful at reasoning about real-world problems that aren't immediately obvious from common language. LLMs are just auto-complete on steroids. The madness I have seen them write through past heavy, repeated use for business-context-sensitive purposes has made me distrust them for any code besides boilerplate. Agents are fantastic for providing helpful feedback on where potential bugs are, summarizing badly-written vendor documentation (as long as it's available online), etc. Anything brute-force/context-free that previously required Google-fu, agents are great for. Use an axe for big swings, and an exacto knife for precise cuts.