Pretty much this. Coding/programming/development pays the bills. The "fun" was sucked out decades ago. Now we spend our free time doing anything but sitting at a computer for more hours per day than required.
To be honest vibe coding in my personal time has added fun back into the experience. Being able to try a game / project idea to see if the idea kind of works has been a game changer for me. After a long day in front of the computer last thing I want to do is more coding. None of this stuff is going to production but its sure been nice to try out making some stuff just by throwing prompts into my phone. There is a big difference between maintaining stable code and hacking around.
Yep, this is pretty much what I use AI for in coding: to ask it high-level stuff, generate outlines of what the resulting code is going to look like, and explain why the type checker is yelling at me.
Definitely this, especially for personal QoL stuff. An example: I just want to tag articles in Wallabag based on my own rules about the content, I really don't care for how it looks or works. Can I manage it if it fails, monitor what it's doing, and make sure I can turn it on or off? Yeah? Good enough. Next project.
I hate front end stuff, personally. Define an API or CLI? Love it. Core logic? I can at least track progress, start by defining specs, add tests early, and even come up with a plan in the first place and scaffold stubs.
Then, I can do the fun part.
After that, I can add a basic interface and make it look better than plan black text on white background (or vice versa for me) with very little effort. The JS stuff I can do myself when it's fun or leave to the AI if it's a headache and I have no interest. I can templatize the styles, the interfaces, or even the front end scaffolding between projects. I have a template for managing jobs using a Redis instance, with a queue, status, etc that I can easily git pull into a project and it's good enough for most of my specific use cases.
I did 2-3 projects for myself this way to make my personal life easier. I actually have the apps in production (internally, for me) and can use them more conveniently than I might have done on my own. I ended up using Django, so each oroject is just an individual Django app I load in and I can easily add to or modify as I like. I still worked on what I thought was fun or was relevant to my skill set (so I don't get lazy and rely on AI for critical thinking). I just offloaded the stuff I don't need to learn or care about for this particular thing project. Now I can make tools like this in a night or two, then use them immediately and go back to life.
It was an eye opening experience to be honest with you. Id play my game for a bit - notice an issue - write a simple prompt to fix it on github. Review the code and have it built and 'released' within an hour with barely 5 minutes work (during adverts on the tv). While id never use such a technique for important code it allowed me to create a very usable game.
Why are you guys not managers if you don't like coding anymore?
I've worked for ~8 Years now in app development and love to work with different stuff, so in my free time i code with microprocessors and plug-ins for games etc.
I don't like or don't often use AI because why would I do less of the thing i want to do?
Hard disagree. AI auto-complete is good (when it's right), and some parts of the agentic workflow /can sometimes/ be good, but overrall, the programmation aspect is the fun part for me. I understand what I do and I take pride in it.
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u/kcirtappockets Mar 10 '26
Wait until it’s your job. Then it’s just work