We were so spoiled. We got fat salaries to sit in air conditioned Herman Millers all day learning about computers. Now we discover a way to synthesis intelligence and the only thing we can think to do with it is ruin the most fun career most of us could have ever hoped for.
Sure, we're all more productive now, but how much of that is because we leverage AI on top of the intelligence we gained from all of that manual work? Who is to say that in 36 months you're not a worse developer over all because that systems knowledge starts to atrophy too?
This isn't me saying you shouldn't use AI. I use it all of the time to do useful side tasks like to setup GitHub Workflows while I write a feature, or with my agent on a VPS to do internet tasks for me. It's nice to have a little synthesized intelligence.
What isn't nice is to supplement your own intelligence. I think the gains are in the work there--similar to how you can be absolutely ripped from taking steroids while destroying your body. Often it's the shortcuts that are the most treacherous path.
It's crazy how I can see articles like this, but in my practical every day use antigravity is a horrible consumer experience. The TUI is broken. You cannot type input while the model is outputting text, otherwise both get messed up and the the TUI renders a sickly blob of text. There are no keyboard shortcuts to switch between planning and execution mode, or a way to directly load skills.
The usage limits are too aggressive, too. I tried to generate a quick Deno Fresh website to act as a a redirect to my GitHub from socials (literally the simplest possible thing I could have asked of it) and it chewed through my five hour limit in tokens from scaffolding.
To me, as a developer of CLI developer tooling, its obvious not a lot of thought or testing went into this product, but as Google has said before: the models are the product".
Huh, I have to say that I am impressed with Chat Jimmy. No doubt that the hardware running this model operates faster than any human. If this was possible to scale, (and I'm not saying it isn't, I just don't think it's likely right now) LLM's have a real shot of replacing real-time graphics, frontend UIs, and all sorts of interactive media if the market allows it.
I still think regardless of how fast a model outputs tokens, it still benefits the person responsible for that output to be well informed and knowledgeable about the abstractions they're piling on top of. If you have deep knowledge, you can operate faster than other people, and make those important decisions in a more intelligent manner than any model.
Maybe in the model we do get super intelligence and my point will finally break, but at that time I don't think I'll be worried about being wrong on the internet.
The disconnect for AI is that it is a jagged frontier and it only really shines when one of its jagged frontiers extends counter to one of your valleys.
If you've been writing Perl for 30 years, you might not want to learn JavaScript just to make a little fun idea in your head to show your wife. Vibe code that shit man. Who cares? Your wife does not care about LOC or those internal design decisions you made.
If you're trying to learn something new like an algorithm, protocol, or API write that shit by hand. You learn by doing, and when you know how the thing works and have that mental context, you will always be faster than an AI. Also, when did we stop liking to learn? Why is it a bad thing to know all the ins and outs of a programming language? To write and make all the decisions yourself? That shit is fun. I don't care if you disagree.
If you're at work and they really care about getting something out of the door, do whatever you think is best. If you just wanna ship vibed code and review PRs all day, all the power to you. If you wanna write it by hand, and use AI like a scalpel to write up boiler plate, review code, do PR audits, etc... go for it!
A hammer is a really great tool that has thousands of purpose-designed uses. I still prefer my key to get into my car. It's all tools, you are a person.
A lot of this stuff if coming top-down from people who do not have the experience you do. Wouldn't a smart employee use their expertise to advise the organization? If you work at a company where that would not be okay, maybe it's time to start looking for another firm.
I've been coding by hand for nearly 20 years. I don't get any rush from generating code with agents. Most of the time I just feel loss.
Coding to me has always been the work of a craftsman. I spent years learning syntax, studying APIs, and generally becoming an expert in a language I could then use to exactly express myself. My code became my way of of telling a story. I picked that language not only because it was the right tool for the job, but because I liked the community, I liked the direction of the tool, and I liked writing it.
Agents obliterate all of that. Before, source code was like exploring a canyon. Each function, loop, and nested brackets was someone's choice. There was an implicit story to follow. Agentic code is that valley after the glaciers have retreated. A good illustration of what I'm afraid of losing is in those videos cataloging the [the rapidly dwindling sanity of valve programmers as expressed through code comments](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k238XpMMn38). When AI generates your code, you lose that context. You lose that human connection to code that I care so much about.
Unfortunately, I don't think the human touch was as high-of-value to other developers as I previously thought. I've realized that for most developers, it was never about the journey, it was about getting to the destination as quickly as possible. We were infected with a plague of idea-guys and didn't even know it.
That's okay.
There are a billion things in the world where what was once the sole dominion of craftsmen is now shared with machines. Tables and chairs used to be all handmade, now I can order one online and it comes in a self-assembly kit. For 99% of people, code is not the objective. The tool they can use is. They don't understand how it works, or what choices you made. It's story would be lost on them anyway, and that's okay. They just need the self-assembly kit.
I use AI when it makes sense. Writing tests, refactoring big changes, reviewing pull requests, and generating the CUD in CRUD after I define the data and how to get it. Stuff I'd send to my junior engineering assistant. I now get to spend more time working on what I want to work on. I just can't forget that learning is effort, and if I skip all of that, I'm no better than anyone else with access to Claude.
I hear a lot of developers coping with AI by saying that what makes them unique is their ideas or understanding of systems. Does anyone really believe that AI will not get cheaper, smaller, smarter, and easier to run locally? It will come for you, and understand your systems better than you.
It's all a game of balance and incentives. If you want to understand code, you need to write it. If you don't care about code, and just want what it can give you, generate it and realize that you're atrophying a unique skill. Feeling hopeless about all of this?
Outside of work, nobody is making you be productive. You can just write code to enjoy it. Anyone who tells you differently is getting off at a different station.
Sure, we're all more productive now, but how much of that is because we leverage AI on top of the intelligence we gained from all of that manual work? Who is to say that in 36 months you're not a worse developer over all because that systems knowledge starts to atrophy too?
This isn't me saying you shouldn't use AI. I use it all of the time to do useful side tasks like to setup GitHub Workflows while I write a feature, or with my agent on a VPS to do internet tasks for me. It's nice to have a little synthesized intelligence.
What isn't nice is to supplement your own intelligence. I think the gains are in the work there--similar to how you can be absolutely ripped from taking steroids while destroying your body. Often it's the shortcuts that are the most treacherous path.