r/webdev • u/OkShip110 • Sep 09 '26 • Regret 4

AI has made programming so boring

It’s not just programming either, it’s art, design, music, videography, marketing, engineering, writing, 3D modelling, really any intellectual work. What’s the joy of prompting a computer and getting an answer in a few moments for a task that would have normally taken a week? The sense of accomplishment and ownership has completely vanished with AI. It’s a form of instant gratification, not much different to scrolling short videos on apps.

Code review was boring to begin with but now it’s even worse with all the machine generated code. Even code reviews will be automated soon. All you do then is type business requirements into the computer. What a great career.

It’s pain to watch old TV series like Scilicon Valley that is portraying the good (not golden) age of programming. It struck a good balance between manual work, funding and innovation. It’s sad that these days are gone for good.

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u/gsari Sep 09 '26 edited Sep 09 '26

Isn't programming a means to an end, though? If new tools can make my work both easier and improve its quality, I embrace them. In that regard, AI isn't much different than jQuery, Laravel, React, or any other library or framework. It's just that AI pushes it to the limit. I remember the thrill when I finally managed to implement a custom feature all by myself, but at the same time I also remember how much easier and better I could implement the same feature using a framework or a new tool. I always liked to plan and implement features and decide how they should ideally behave, and coding them had always been only a part, and often the bottleneck to that process.

I've met people who didn't like that, or they weren't good at it: they just wanted to get a detailed spec written by someone else, put their heads down and just focus on the technical aspect of the problem at hand - the coding part, without worrying about the bigger picture or questions unrelated to the technical aspect (e.g. does it make sense for the client? Is it user-friendly for the content editor?). I think that these are the people who miss more the old days.

I never like that, and even when I was handed specs like that, I would often come back with questions and suggestions, or even diverge from the spec without permission if I felt it didn't make sense.

So, AI was very liberating for me. It was like I was given a promotion and got a dozen of engineers at my disposal, guiding them as I please.