> Unfortunately this doesn't fix a bigger problem... I just don't enjoy vibe coding as a craft. There's something special about sitting down in the morning with your coffee and taking on a difficult programming problem. You start writing some code, the solutions start to formalize in your mind, there's a strong back-and-forth effect where as you code, the concepts crystalize further... small wins fuel a wonderful dopamine hit experience... intellisense completions, compilation completions, page refreshes, etc. are now all replaced with dull moments often waiting for the agent to return its response, which you now read.
Agreed. For me, LLMs don't just reduce the kind of active learning and problem solving that make my job enjoyable; they change and replace it with a "skill" that barely merits the name. "Learning how to use AI" means learning how to use a product. That's worthless. It teaches nothing of durable value.
I'm also not in any way interested in using these tools to learn anything else. They can print out as much information as you want about this or that or that topic, and even if it's correct 100% of the time, you remain a passive consumer of information that the tool is chewing, digesting, regurgitating, and spitting into your mouth.
On the other hand, I'm also profoundly technically and intellectually bored. I can solve all of the problems I encounter in the codebase I work on. I can diagnose issues, refine build, shorten test pipelines, and mentor junior developer -- and I cannot imagine doing this for the rest of my working life. My brain will liquify and dribble out my ears long before I reach retirement age.
If what I were doing were more interesting and technically challenging, maybe I'd feel differently, but if LLMs kill off the kind of programming I do, I'm not sure anybody should grieve, particular if its death sends reasonably smart, curious people to fields where their efforts produce something of greater, or actual, value -- and doesn't wind up lining the pockets of the next generation of insufferable, bs-shoveling "thought leaders."
> I have been saying this to everyone -- what's your exit strategy?
Personally? I'm already preparing to sell our house. I'll keep my current job for as long as I can or for as long as makes sense, and then I'll go back to school for nursing, and become a psychiatric nurse practitioner.