What felt incredible was getting the setup and prompting right and then producing reasonable working code at 50x human speed. And you're right, that doesn't excite after a while.

But I've found my way to what, for me, is a more durable and substantial source of satisfaction, if not excitement, and that is value. Excuse the cliche, but its true.

My life has been filled with little utilities that I've been meaning to put together for years but never found the time. My homelab is full of various little applications that I use, that are backed up and managed properly. My home automation does more than it ever did, and my cabin in the countryside is monitored and adaptive to conditions to a whole new degree of sophistication. I have scripts and workflows to deal with a fairly significant administrative load - filing and accounting is largely automated, and I have a decent approximation of an always up-to-date accountant and lawyer on hand. Paper letters and PDFs are processed like its nothing.

Does all the code that was written at machine-speed to achieve these things thrill me? No, that's the new normal. Is the fact that I'm clawing back time, making my Earthly affairs orderly in a whole new way, and breathing software-life into my surroundings without any cloud or big-tech encroachment thrilling? Yes, sometimes - but more importantly it's satisfying and calming.

As far as using my brain - I devote as much of my cognitive energy to these things as I ever have, but now with far more to show for it. As the agents work for me, I try to learn and validate everything they do, and I'm the one stitching it all into a big cohesive picture. Like directing a film. And this is a new feeling.

I can only speak for myself of course, but injecting software into all those processes to me seems like a source of stress more than something calming.

The best technology is the one we don't even need to use.

Isn't it just like programming?

Many of programmers became programmers because they find the idea of programming fascinating, probably in their middle school days. And then they went to be professionals. Then they burned out and if they were lucky, transited to management.

Of course not everyone is like that, but you can't say it isn't common, right.

If what once felt incredible is just another prompt today, what is incredible today? Addictive personalities usually double down to get a bigger dopamine kick - that's why they stay addicted. So I don't think you truly found it addictive in the conventional sense of the term. Also excercising the brain has been optional in software for quite a while tbh.

Apart from the addicts, AI also helps the liars, marketeers and bloggers. You can outsource the lies to the AI.

Yeah if you want to keep your edge you have to find other ways to work your programming brain.

But as far as output - we all have different reasons for enjoying software development but for me it's more making something useful and less in the coding itself. AI makes the fun parts more fun and the less fun parts almost invisible (at small scale).

We'll all have to wrestle with this going forward.

If you use an LLM you've given up your edge.

If you use a compiler you've given up your edge.

I think the randomness is addicting. While writing a prompt often doesn't result in the perfect outcome, it very well could. Pressing the "prompt lever" (again and again), waiting for the result to show up looks a lot like gambling.

See "Variable Ratio Schedule" https://www.simplypsychology.org/schedules-of-reinforcement....

This. This is what people aren't talking about. LLMs are like slot machines for developers, and slot machines are fucking awful for your brain.