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I'm 60 years old. Claude Code killed a passion

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Re: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code killed a passion

#21

Post by Isamu »

FunSociety wrote: post #2

I'm not sure I understand... why not simply ignore AI and keep coding the way you always have? It's a bit like saying motorboats killed your passion for rowing.

I agree, I’m an old dude too. For personal projects I do what I like. I also like carving stone and wood the hard way, just because.

At work though the hype sucks the life out of the last part of the job that some people found enjoyable, because complete control is enjoyable. Personally I think work is just doing what someone else wants, rather than pleasing yourself.

Re: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code killed a passion

#22

Post by donatj »

> it depends on what you enjoy: the journey or the destination

This has been 100% my experience. I enjoy the puzzle solving and the general joy of organizing and pulling things together. I could really care less about the end result to meet some business need. The fun part is in the building, it's in the understanding, the growth of me.

I have coworkers who get itchy when they don't see their work on production, and super defensive in code review but I've never really cared. The goal is to solve the puzzle. If there's a better way to solve the puzzle, I want to know. If it takes a week to get through code review, what do I care, I'm already off to the next puzzle.

Being forced to use Claude at work, it really just took away everything that was enjoyable. Instead of solving puzzles I'm wrangling a digital junior dev that doesn't really learn from its mistakes, and lies all the time.

Re: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code killed a passion

#25

Post by cies »

Art9681 wrote: post #9

I enjoy the journey too. The journey is building systems, not coding. Coding was always the most tedious and least interesting part of it. Thinking about the system, thinking about its implementation details, iterating and making it better and better. Nothing has changed with AI. My ambition grew with the technology. Now I don't waste time on simple systems. I can get to work doing what I've always thought would be i…

So much agreed. I'm constraining my AI, that always wants to add more dependencies, create unnecessary code, broaden test to the point they become useless. I have in mind what I want it to build, and now I have workflows to make sure it does so effectively.

I also ask it a lot of questions regarding my assumptions, and so "we" (me and the AI) find better solutions that either of us could make on our own.

Re: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code killed a passion

#27

Post by foldr »

If it's a personal project, I just get AI to do the boring bits and write the fun bits myself. I enjoy coding in general, but every project has its share of boring boilerplate code, or utility functions that you've already written 100 times. Also, LLMS are pretty good at code review, which is very beneficial when you are working on something solo.

Re: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code killed a passion

#28

Post by kreicer »

The sad truth of life. This story reminded me of the time when I tried my first MMO - at first it felt like a fairy tale, something unknown, something that could still surprise you. And then you get familiar with all the mechanics, and the magic disappears. Now it’s just a “tool.”

Re: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code killed a passion

#29

Post by Rochus »

For me (60 too) it's both, the journey and the destination. LLMs not only help me get around the boring stuff so I have more time for the things I really want to design and build, but they also open areas for me in which I always wanted to go but for which it was very time consuming or difficult to get the required knowledge (e.g. tons of academic papers which are neither well written nor complete and sometimes just wrong). The LLMs help me to explore and find the right way through those areas, so these adventures suddenly become affordable for me, without doing a PhD on each subject. And even if the LLM generates some code, it still needs a "guiding hand" and engineering experience. So for me, no, AI doesn't kill my passion, but offers a very attractive symbiosis, which makes me much more efficient and my spare-time work even more interesting. I find myself watching fewer and fewer streaming videos because exploring new areas and collaborating with the LLM is much more entertaining.
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