[k3nx]

I've struggled a bit with this myself. I'm having a paradigm shift. I used to say "but I like writing code". But like the article says, that's not really true. I like building things, the code was just a way to do that. If you want to get pedantic, I wasn't building things before AI either, the compiler/linker was doing that for me. I see this is just another level of abstraction. I still get to decide how things work, what "layers" I want to introduce. I still get to say, no, I don't like that. So instead of being the "grunt", I'm the designer/architect. I'm still building what I want. Boilerplate code was never something I enjoyed before anyway. I'm loving (like actually giggling) having the AI tie all the bits for me and getting up and running with things working. It reminds me of my Delphi days: File->New Project, and you're ready to go. I think I was burnt out. AI is helping me find joy again. I also disable AI in all my apps as well, so I'm still on the fence about several things too.

[andrekandre]

  > I'm having a paradigm shift. I used to say "but I like writing code". But like the article says, that's not really true. I like building things, the code was just a way to do that.

i get this; for me i find coding is fun as video games so i don't personally want to turn all code to ai, but what i DO WANT is for it to automate away drudgery of repeating actions and changes (or when i get stuck be a rubber duck for me)... i want to focus my creativity on the interesting parts myself and learn and grow to a better programmer... it may sound crazy but programming is relaxing for me lol

[druide67]

This resonates. I spent years thinking I enjoyed coding, but what I actually enjoy is designing elegant solutions built on solid architecture. Inventing, innovating, building progressively on strong foundations. The real pleasure is the finished product (is it ever really finished though?) — seeing it's useful and makes people's lives easier, while knowing it's well-built technically. The user doesn't see that part, but we know.

With AI, by always planning first, pushing it to explore alternative technical approaches, making it explain its choices — the creative construction process gets easier. You stay the conductor. Refactoring, new features, testing — all facilitated. Add regular AI-driven audits to catch defects, and of course the expert eye that nothing replaces.

One thing that worries me though: how will junior devs build that expert eye if AI handles the grunt work? Learning through struggle is how most of us developed intuition. That's a real problem for the next generation.