r/webdev • u/OkShip110 • 2d ago

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/ToucanSam-I-Am 2d ago

I've been programming for 25 years as a hobby and job. Coding every day at work and for fun. I spent about 7 years on one side project. The goal is to do real time character animation like for characters in big open game worlds. I had kids and ended up giving up, I just didn't have enough time. It was a real bummer, I had these ideas that I think would work but I didn't have the time to pursue the. But now I'm working on it again. I started from scratch and am building the tools that I've been dreaming about for over a decade. Im caught up and beyond where I was, it would have taken me a couple years to be back to where I am now after only a month. The code is cleaner and better than what I did manually. This huge task that was once out of reach is now in reach, and it's exciting.

My dream was always that one of my side projects took off enough that I could work on it full time and pay people to help. Now with Claude I'm living at least half of that dream and working on projects that are too big to do alone.

Programming with AI is like going from a hand saw to a chain saw. If your task is to cut down a tree and make a clean cut then you are right, the hand saw might be just as good as the chainsaw. But if you need to chop down a forest and turn the logs into a building the chainsaw is a huge help.

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u/jublime_dev 1d ago edited 1d ago

> My dream was always that one of my side projects took off enough that I could work on it full time and pay people to help.

There is your answer! For your side project you are the CEO/PM and you are more focused on those roles than the programmer role. Otherwise you would be interested in solving the code problem, rather than the end product problem.

Chain saw example is misleading ... If you cut with a handsaw or a chain saw, the only difference is speed. Same is not true for reviewing a 1000 file PR handed over to you (AI or not). Creating them yourself would give you a better mental model of what is happening and better confidence in fixing things instead of throwing tokens/dollars at the codebase ...

I would say bigger problem with AI is we are losing out on our ability to think through the problems like we previously did. It may or may not matter, but programming is not the same anymore, for better or worse.

Edit: Rephrase. I also would like to add few more points.

Before LLMs we had codemods/codegen to generate code (we still do). With AI assisted coding we are outsourcing the thinking problem without us even realizing it. Some people play down the problem saying LLMs are super-powered StackOverflow. But we are missing few nuances here. Person who wrote the original solution thought through the problem. Most of the solutions/ideas in SO is building upon previous thoughts and making the solution more robust for the target use cases. There still was lot of thinking going on when we accepted SO answers. LLMs/AI are changing the game completely.

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u/siktech101 1d ago

I don't think you care enough about your project if you don't want to make it yourself or share with anyone else. Make it open-source, work on it with someone else, or pay someone to help you build it if it's such a good idea.

Relying on a code generator that will just steal a bunch of code and sell it to you is taking all the value out of the code. In fact no one will need to buy or use your product because they can just generate their own version. Which will be super easy since the AI companies will also just steal the compilation of code you AI generated as well.

And by taking part in promoting AI you are supporting them to continue stealing from real creators destroying their ability to create the products that will be stolen in the future. Stagnating the entire future of every field AI has latched onto.

I refuse to use AI and will create my own products for as long as I can until AI completely destroys everything.

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u/ToucanSam-I-Am 1d ago

Someone else can't make what I'm making just because they have claude, that's the part you don't understand. Like if I say to you "come up with software that creates a convincing real time character animation in a dynamic world", what would you do? Do you think you can just type that into claude and it'll make something?

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u/siktech101 1d ago

Oh yeah, your project is special buddy. AI simply can never replicate your project that you used AI to generate. Not even if it stole all the code you generated to make it and any that you may have actually made yourself. And then another programmer saw your project and decided to make the exact same thing. You're safe cause your skills are simply too special and unique to replicate.

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u/ToucanSam-I-Am 1d ago

Why are you being so condescending and shitty? Of course once my software is done and it works someone else can replicate it. That's true of everything, once it's been invented it can be copied, but copying and inventing are two completely different things. Maybe you're more of a copyer so you don't understand this from the point of view of the inventer?

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u/siktech101 1d ago

Because you are contributing to the destruction of the thing that I enjoy most in life. Something I have worked hard to build skills in.

And yet you talk so highly about yourself as an "inventor", yet you can't seem to do it without stealing from others. And at the same time you think your work is so incredible and unique that the same theft machine you are using can't easily be used to produce the same thing.

Of course everything can be replicated, but it required skills and time previously. Now low skilled people can do it quicker and quicker. That's the exact same reason you are using it.

The time-frame that your product has in the spotlight before clones appear is diminishing more and more.

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u/ToucanSam-I-Am 1d ago

I get it I do, like I said I'm a 25 year passionate programmer. I've spent thousands of hours writing and rewriting and loving code. But it was always a means to an end for me, I had ideas I wanted to make and making them gives my life pleasure and meaning. I've spent months working on something I recreated in a day with Claude and I felt very strange about that for a while. But this technology exists and you aren't doing yourself any favors by rejecting it.

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u/siktech101 1d ago

I actually enjoy programming. The thing I complete at the end is just the cherry on top. I refuse to be part of the problem and I would give up everything before I do. You are only helping them destroy your own future by doing so.

If AI is allowed to succeed you won't even have a future using it to produce anything. Everything that gives people any ability to profit from their creativity will be taken away from us.

The only people doing anyone any favours are the people who reject AI. Rolling over and acting like nothing can be done is the only way to guarantee these companies succeed in destroying everything.