I have been diving deep into LLM coding over the last 3 years and regular encountered that feeling along the way. I still at times have a "wtf" moment where I need to take a break. However, I have been able to quell most of my anxieties around my job / the software profession in general (I've been at this professionally for 25+ years and software has been my dream job since I was 6).
For one, I found AI coding to work best in a small team, where there is an understanding of what to build and how to build it, usually in close feedback loop with the designers / users. Throw the usual managerial company corporate nonsense on top and it doesn't really matter if you can instacreate a piece of software, if nobody cares for that piece of software and it's just there to put a checkmark on the Q3 OKR reports.
Furthermore, there is a lot of software to be built out there, for people who can't afford it yet. A custom POS system for the local baker so that they don't have to interact with a computer. A game where squids eat algae for my nephews at christmas. A custom photo layout software for my dad who despairs at indesign. A plant watering system for my friend. A local government information website for older citizens. Not only can these be built at a fraction of the cost they were before, but they can be built in a manner where the people using the software are directly involved in creating it. Maybe they can get a 80% hacked version together if they are technically enclined. I can add the proper database backend and deployment infrastructure. Or I can sit with them and iterate on the app as we are talking. It is also almost free to create great documentation, in fact, LLM development is most productive when you turn up software engineering best practices up to 11.
Furthermore, I found these tools incredible for actively furthering my own fundamental understanding of computer science and programming. I can now skip the stuff I don't care to learn (is it foobarBla(func, id) or foobar_bla(id, func)) and put the effort where I actually get a long-lived return. I have become really ambitious with the things I can tackle now, learning about all kinds of algorithms and operating system patterns and chemistry and physics etc... I can also create documents to help me with my learning.
Local models are now entering the phase where they are getting to be really useful, definitely > gpt3.5 which I was able to use very productively already at the time.
Writing (creating? manifesting? I don't really have a good word for what I do these days) software that makes me and real humans around me happy is extremely fulfilling, and has allevitated most of my angst around the technology.
For one, I found AI coding to work best in a small team, where there is an understanding of what to build and how to build it, usually in close feedback loop with the designers / users. Throw the usual managerial company corporate nonsense on top and it doesn't really matter if you can instacreate a piece of software, if nobody cares for that piece of software and it's just there to put a checkmark on the Q3 OKR reports.
Furthermore, there is a lot of software to be built out there, for people who can't afford it yet. A custom POS system for the local baker so that they don't have to interact with a computer. A game where squids eat algae for my nephews at christmas. A custom photo layout software for my dad who despairs at indesign. A plant watering system for my friend. A local government information website for older citizens. Not only can these be built at a fraction of the cost they were before, but they can be built in a manner where the people using the software are directly involved in creating it. Maybe they can get a 80% hacked version together if they are technically enclined. I can add the proper database backend and deployment infrastructure. Or I can sit with them and iterate on the app as we are talking. It is also almost free to create great documentation, in fact, LLM development is most productive when you turn up software engineering best practices up to 11.
Furthermore, I found these tools incredible for actively furthering my own fundamental understanding of computer science and programming. I can now skip the stuff I don't care to learn (is it foobarBla(func, id) or foobar_bla(id, func)) and put the effort where I actually get a long-lived return. I have become really ambitious with the things I can tackle now, learning about all kinds of algorithms and operating system patterns and chemistry and physics etc... I can also create documents to help me with my learning.
Local models are now entering the phase where they are getting to be really useful, definitely > gpt3.5 which I was able to use very productively already at the time.
Writing (creating? manifesting? I don't really have a good word for what I do these days) software that makes me and real humans around me happy is extremely fulfilling, and has allevitated most of my angst around the technology.