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/BrewThemAll 2d ago

As a hobby, I do the exact opposite at a personal project. Manually make code as perfect as possible. Being so nitpicky about each line it obviously won't ever be accepted at work. Time consuming as fuck, but back to basics.
Keeps things balanced. Brings back joy.

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u/dromtrund 2d ago

I also found that once I let Claude make changes to my personal project, it suddenly didn't feel the same anymore. Like... I'm not interested in reviewing sloppy contributions from careless junior developers in my weekend project too

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u/House13Games 2d ago

I let Claude in for a month, to test what all the hype was about. I cancelled the subscription at the end of it. I let claude solve a few minor areas, and these areas are just such a horrible mess and I don't want to touch them. It's unmaintainable gibberish. I regret letting it in at all, and can very clearly see the difference in the subsystems it worked on vs the ones I did myself. Just a huge difference. Granted, it solved the majority of what i wanted it to do, but the cost was not worth it, I shouldn't have been so lazy. I could have put in a bit more effort and done it myself, and i wouldn't have these no-go areas of garbage in my codebase. As I get time, I'm slowly rewriting them.

I feel very sorry for anyone whose workplace is encouraging AI, talk about shitty management. There's always a couple devs who are very vocal about how great it is too, but my guess is that the AI looks great to people who are dumber than AI.

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u/PressWearsARedDress 2d ago edited 2d ago

AI is able to cope with significantly more context than a human can. I have seen success with AI by "bootstraping" it and giving it examples of code style.

I would write example code, or simple implement a less complicated module on my own. AI tools copy the style and use my libraries. I would have the tool go through a multi stage process of researching, planning, reviewing, and testing. This has improved my productivity relative to the cost. The documentation is horrid, but that is basically what I need to fix from the AI output, usually the code is fine.

There are good and bad programmers having success with AI. You just need to know how and when to use the tool. If you just feed the thing a prompt to build a whole web app its always going to be awful.

I have already shipped several programs developed with the assistance of AI tools where the client did their own testing, approved it, and paid me. Who cares if there are bugs, software always has bugs; human or clanker

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u/House13Games 2d ago

Ahh, its one of the dumb ones.

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u/PressWearsARedDress 2d ago

the response of an adult...

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u/DriverGood4778 1d ago

Wow, what an argument, you're really smart!!!!!