> Context switching is a skill that gets easier the more you practice it, just like any other.
Totally agree with this!!
I learned this when I started off as a junior dev. We had some shitty machines and the project compiled for like almost 10mins. Most of the people just read the news and stuff and for some reason I started reading Clean code from Bob Martin (probabbly someone sent me a pdf of it or something). I remember reading it all in a few weeks using those breaks. Then I just kept the habit for almost a year (until we got some better workstations).
>The new way: The entire premise of AI coding tools is to automate the thinking, not just the typing.
That’s the promise, but not the reality :)
Try this: pick a random startup idea from the internet, something that would normally take 3–6 months to build without AI. Now go all in with AI. Don’t worry about enjoyment; just try to get it done.
You’ll notice pretty quickly that it doesn’t get you very far.
Some things go faster, until you hit a wall (and you will hit it). Then you either have to redo parts or step back and actually understand what the AI built so far, so you can move forward where it can’t.
>I was thinking of all the classic exploratory learning blog posts. Things that sounded fun. Writing a toy database to understand how they work, implementing a small Redis clone. Now that feels stupid. Like I'd be wasting time on details the AI is supposed to handle.
It was "stupid" then - better alternatives already existed, but you do it to learn.
> Am I alone in this?
absolutly not
but understand it is just a tool, not a replacement, use it and you will soon find the joy again, it is there
This perfectly aligns with my experience.
Every large project I have worked on showed a clear correlation between the ease of setup and running and the number of problems on the project, like bugs and missed deadlines.
looks like DW-5000C - not so good, but "yuck" is a bit too much, no?