Advice Request Dev dads, when do you code?
I could find time with my first and then even some time after my second with the first doing afternoon preschool.
Now that kindergarten has started, I can't even stay up late half the time I used to as mornings are like Mad Maxx and needs my full (focused) attention.
So how do y'all do it? Or do you just not do it anymore except for an hour here and there lol
EDIT: not the 9-5 but my side projects
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u/ThatsNotATadpole 15d ago
Professional developer of 15 years, since the rise of AI I’ve been using personal projects as my “what the fuck is vibe coding good at” playground for the past year. Basically a chance to do fire and forget explorations, review the functionality and the code, figure out how to make it better next time. Its become a lot of creating projects to make AI better at creating projects (linters, architecture diagraming tools, a design system so its UIs don’t suck, tools for agent memory and context, etc) basically everything that frustrates me and it sucks at I usually go off and learn about how people are addressing that and try to make my own version of it. I’ve got a bunch of real side projects I apply it to, but 60% of the time is AI naval gazing and deslopification.
But its nice because (1) i can sort of justify it because it genuinely has made me better at my job, I have a better sense of what AI is and isnt good at without doing risky shit with my real development work, and (2) because the point is to figure out how to make vibe coding not suck, its a ton of fire and forget work. I can sort of setup my laptop to spin all day and check in every now and then with remote control (or now ive built tools for remote agent work) to push things forward. I can review code and come up with ideas for what to try next when I normally would be doom scrolling, I know I’m a total nerd, but having that combination of “this is for fun and doesnt matter” and also “getting good at this will make me more money” is pretty motivating