Here’s the thing: the software development world is a strange beast. I’ve been watching it for two decades, and frankly, a lot of it has stopped making sense. Take this latest missive from a coder feeling… hollow. And not just a little hollow, but “disgusting,” “fake,” and ready to bail on a lucrative career. Sound familiar? It should.
The author kicks off by painting a picture of struggle, of anxiety and depression clinging like a damp sweater. For years, chemistry was the chosen torment. Not the kind with beakers and explosions that Dexter promised, but the soul-crushing, by-the-book variety. Wrong turn. Eight years ago, a pivot. An internship. Suddenly, the air smelled like possibility.
PHP. WordPress. SCSS. Templating. Header fiddles. It was a mountain, sure, but a mentor helped. Feedback was gold. Growth happened. Fast. Five years in, leading custom projects. The plateau hit hard. The learning shifted from code to customer calls, to upselling. And then, the creeping disillusionment: “seeing bad developers around me – people who didnt care.” People who hadn’t clawed their way up from the trenches. The perception window, apparently, was narrow.
A new language beckoned. Go. The author fell hard. Built a big app. Enjoyed the process. But the next gig? Coworkers were a letdown. Worse, a fellow senior senior-developer seemed hell-bent on abstracting everything into oblivion, “butchering” the very benefits Go was supposed to offer.
Then, the inevitable. AI arrived, a hotcake commodity. OpenAI, Claude. The fear of being “left behind” kicked in. But the author, smartly, dodged the autocomplete trap. Stuck to the web app. Used repomix for context. And… “made a lot of things happen with it.”
Here’s the gut punch. “I learned absolutely nothing. Nothing.” Solved problems, yes. But could replicate the solutions? Doubtful. The feeling? “Disgusting.” Like a fraud. And suddenly, the entire industry’s perception warped.
The dilemma: the pay is good. Decades of accumulated knowledge. Wasted? So, the decision: a new ark. Less AI. Much less. AI is a tool, sure, but not the whole toolbox. The recommendation? Learn a low-level language. C. Dive into game development. And, crucially, “don’t learn a framework… You become a framework developer.” The author was that person. In PHP.
Go, for all its later frustrations, opened doors. Building from the ground up. A guide named Casey Muratori is now the beacon. The effort must be reignited. The improvement must be earned.
The AI Mirror: Reflection or Distortion?
This isn’t just one person’s existential funk. It’s a symptom. We’re awash in tools that promise to do the heavy lifting, and for a while, it feels like magic. Faster delivery. Fewer late nights spent wrestling with obscure syntax. But what’s the cost? When the code flows from a black box, or from a suggestion that you barely parse before hitting enter, where does your own understanding reside? It’s like learning to cook by only ever pressing buttons on a fancy food processor. You get a meal, sure, but do you know how to cook? This developer’s visceral reaction – the “disgusting” feeling – is the alarm bell. It signals that the industry might be prioritizing output over actual, hard-won expertise. And that’s a dangerous game for anyone trying to build something lasting, something truly innovative, rather than just churn out another feature.
Why Does This Matter for Developers?
Look, nobody wants to be stuck in a perpetual learning loop, especially when the bills need paying. But this existential dread isn’t just about personal satisfaction; it’s about the long-term viability of your skillset. If AI can generate the boilerplate, handle the routine bugs, and even draft complex logic, what’s left for the human? The author’s turn towards C and game development is a deliberate choice to engage with complexity, with the fundamental mechanics of computing. It’s a rejection of the abstracted-away layers that, while convenient, can also obscure true understanding. For those worried about becoming “framework developers” – basically, highly skilled copy-pasters – this is a wake-up call. Doubling down on fundamentals, understanding how things work at a lower level, is the insurance policy against becoming obsolete. It’s about building resilience, not just immediate productivity.
I learned absolutely nothing. Nothing. Yeah I solved a lot of new problems… but looking back… I dont think I could replicate that solution because I used AI to solve it.
This confession is brutal, and it hits home. It’s the ghost in the machine, the nagging doubt that the impressive output wasn’t really yours. For years, Silicon Valley has chased efficiency, often at the expense of depth. Faster, cheaper, more. AI just accelerated that trend to warp speed. But what happens when the foundation is shaky because no one actually understands the bedrock? That’s where the real risk lies. It’s not about whether AI can do the job; it’s about what happens to the human doing the job when they outsource their critical thinking and their learning process.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What does this developer recommend instead of heavy AI usage? This developer suggests reducing AI usage significantly, focusing on learning low-level languages like C, and exploring fields like game development to build a deeper understanding of programming fundamentals rather than relying on frameworks.
Will learning AI tools make me a bad developer? The author argues that over-reliance on AI, particularly for code generation without understanding the underlying principles, can lead to a feeling of being a ‘fake’ and hinder genuine skill development. It’s about the how and why of code, not just the what.
Is this a common feeling among developers using AI? While not explicitly stated as widespread, the author’s visceral reaction and self-description as a “fake” suggest a potential undercurrent of unease regarding the authenticity of AI-assisted development.
