"I thought I loved coding because that's what I could do, and what I was able to do very effectively. It felt like it was the thing for me to do, and nothing else ever came close. It was my superpower, my identity, my craft. But now that I have AI assistance, I'm realizing that the coding part was never actually the thing."
"Because in the past, you really had no choice. Either you figured it out or you didn't. Either you made the machine do the thing you wanted it to do, or you didn't. Anything you couldn't figure out was impossible for you to solve. The act of composing text into lines of code, deploying these lines, testing each individual line, building a strong mental model of"
"A quick word from our Sponsor, Paddle.com. I use Paddle as my Merchant of Record for all my software projects. They take care of all the taxes, the currencies, tracking declined transactions and updated credit cards so that I can focus on dealing with my competitors (and not banks and financial regulators). If you think you'd rather just build your product, check out Paddle.com as your payment provider. Here's what I've recently realized: I never really loved coding. I just always thought I did."
Long-term experience as a software entrepreneur and developer combined with AI assistance changed the relationship to coding. Coding previously provided enjoyment, identity, and a sense of craft because it was the primary way to solve problems and build desired systems. AI agents now solve problems faster and more comprehensively, shifting focus away from composing and debugging code lines. The necessity to master every detail disappeared because AI can generate, test, and reason about solutions. The realization follows that the underlying satisfaction comes from solving problems and creating products, rather than the mechanical act of writing code.
Read at The Bootstrapped Founder
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