Comment by cake-rusk
1 month ago
> I can prototype working projects in possibly 1/30th the time, and I can do them simultaneously.
This takes all the fun out of programming for me.
1 month ago
> I can prototype working projects in possibly 1/30th the time, and I can do them simultaneously.
This takes all the fun out of programming for me.
I have the same "1/30th ... simultaneous" experience with coding agents, and I am having fun. Directing teams of agents to solve many problems (or create many useful things) for me has its own fun challenges/puzzles-to-solve.
Some of the fun is redirecting coding agents when they get stuck, by showing them code or design they could not work out on their own. Some of the fun is designing tools to rein-in AI coding agents, keep them on track, and verify their outputs. Some of the fun is exploring new areas for me: compilers, game dev, language design, emulators, embedded, etc.
So I am having fun at the CTO/PM/Engineering Manager level but also at the lowest coding level.
I've been coding since the early 70s. This brings back the joy I had discovering microprocessors and electronics.
Sure, if that is what you like. I for one did not get into this field because I wanted to hire people (artificial or natural) to write the programs for me. Programming as an activity / art is what I enjoyed the most. Managing people / agents is a total turn off.
serious question: do you program in machine code or assembler or use a higher level language? do you use design patterns and functional approaches? metaprogramming, code generation, templating, app frameworks?
Each tool, abstraction, language feature elevates coding to get more done with less (more concisely). Programming is a social activity, since source code is meant to be read by humans (at least historically) even if it is just yourself later.
I'm not trying to talk you into using AI coding agents, but explain why I find them fun, and I've written a lot of code by hand over decades, from spaghetti assembler code to structureed programming to object oriented to functional, etc. Each advance in the industry has been a new and diiferent kind of fun for me.
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Nobody's stopping you from writing code, whether as a hobby or you find/start a company where that's valued.
But I am creating programs to manage the coding agents for me. Of course I am using coding agents to do that. It's turtles all the way down :-)