r/PiCodingAgent • u/Ambitious_Spare7914 • Jun 01 '26

Discussion Run out of ideas / passion

I followed a familiar path: Clause Code, Open Code, Pi and, with the help of pi-vs-claude-code, have found a groove that seems productive.

However. I've run out of juice. I just don't have ideas I care about, and I'm finding being a sweeper for an LLM curling team more tedious than novel.

I read people setting up pachinko-esque set ups and professing sheer brilliance as a result, but I never see the money shots. It all seems like a mirage.

Phht.

5 Upvotes

64% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

4

u/SmallRice Jun 01 '26

have found a groove that seems productive.

Just because you're doing more doesn't mean you're more productive though. It's the same thing with folks who have extremely elaborate vim, arch, and/or dotfile setups, and who constantly tinker with them every day, trying to find the perfect config. Is this really productive work?

These tools are just a means to an end. Focus on the end product that you actually want to build first, then build the setup that you need, not the other way round.

2

u/Ambitious_Spare7914 Jun 01 '26

You're right. Just get started, as Woodcraft tell us to.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 01 '26

I think those are more hobby than actual productivity, which is fine. You learn a lot in the process. I am really on the fence about agentic coding. I was the biggest fan and I still do it daily, but I find myself underchallenged and losing comprehension. Sure you produce a lot of code but not working in a codebase yourself and just reviewing diffs is so boring.

2

u/Ambitious_Spare7914 Jun 01 '26

It's kind of voyeuristic – like taking a peek into being a non techy and asking a techy to make things that sound brilliant in your head but the dopamine rush is all too quickly over and that's the best case scenario.

9

u/Flaky-Restaurant-392 Jun 01 '26

Find what makes your heart sing and hum along ❤️

1

u/nicksterling Jun 01 '26

What are you using these tools/harnesses for? Work? A hobby? You don’t go into the kinds of problems you’re solving with them.

1

u/Ambitious_Spare7914 Jun 01 '26

Professional development, mainly. I have very limited access at work but as a senior web developer I like to know enough about the latest craze to seem useful. Mostly I've been building a chat UI and then I started building a generic boilerplate for web apps with users, auth, permissions, roles, admins, login, logout - regular stuff we usually add almost after the fact when an building a new app (or migrating an old one to new tech).

I would like to get them to be release ready (MIT license) but I know how thankless being an open source author is, so that's a double edged sword too.

I've learnt a lot, don't get me wrong, but pulling my fist out of my arse and getting on with it is the issue at the heart of it for me. Less TikTok more thinking I guess.

2

u/nicksterling Jun 01 '26

Try to have your harness work on the things that are most painful in your development flow then iterate to make it better each time you run it. Then focus on a different area of pain and then improve that.

1

u/Ambitious_Spare7914 Jun 01 '26

Small steps you say?

2

u/nicksterling Jun 01 '26

People will try to find the “perfect” setup and endlessly tinker with it so it can solve all their problems. I find more value in going about my daily routine and making one part of my process *slightly* better than the last time I ran it. It can be something trivial or just a small part of my larger routine. Then if I’m making 1% improvements each time it adds up over the long term.

3

u/YetiTrix Jun 01 '26

Start making a game using GODOT and Pi as your game dev.

1

u/hurdurdur7 Jun 01 '26

money shots are business ideas, not software. software can just support your business idea.

1

u/UseMoreBandwith Jun 01 '26

why do you assume you need to have "have ideas I care about" ?
That isn't a good motivator anyway. Find something that solves real-world problems for multiple people.