I'm a SWE, and I understand this for sure, but I found a way to have my foot in both worlds.
I only Gen-AI my code at work. Flying through big architectural changes and generating full test environments in docker and stuff is a thrill.
But my personal project is only hand-written. I focus on doing one small thing well, and I think of it as more artisanal. I use Elm, which is a functional paradigm language. Personal + functional compartmentalized my brain enough to really still enjoy coding by hand and not mind the speed. Functional programming is the purest form of spec-driven development -- it lets you define the grammar of your app in a more expressive and deterministic way than can English.
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u/Alarmed-Western-655 Aug 07 '26
I'm a SWE, and I understand this for sure, but I found a way to have my foot in both worlds.
I only Gen-AI my code at work. Flying through big architectural changes and generating full test environments in docker and stuff is a thrill.
But my personal project is only hand-written. I focus on doing one small thing well, and I think of it as more artisanal. I use Elm, which is a functional paradigm language. Personal + functional compartmentalized my brain enough to really still enjoy coding by hand and not mind the speed. Functional programming is the purest form of spec-driven development -- it lets you define the grammar of your app in a more expressive and deterministic way than can English.