I had no idea so many people still clung to these lines!
Personally, I see huge value. I’ve built more in the past year than I ever have before. Ideas that used to go on a list, now get implemented in a weekend. The ones that are good, I’ve shipped. Others get played with, tested, and set aside. Not due to lack of quality, but the idea wasn’t right. Some need more thought so I’ll keep testing, and tweaking over time.
Evidence? Those projects would not exist if not for these tools. Not because I couldn’t write them, but because I WOULDN’T have written them.
But I’ve given up trying to convince people. If you don’t think it works, great. Don’t use it. That’s fine with me!
I’d urge you to keep trying though. Hopefully you have the moment as well. And if you think, “it’s ok for some things, but not what I do”, well…just don’t wait a year before trying again. Keep an open mind, and integrate the tools into your workflow everyday. Not as a one off “ok fine, I’ll test this stuff” grumpy kind of way, but in an honest iterative way where you are using the tools on a daily basis, even in a small way. For docs. Whatever. Just keep using them. Eventually you’ll see. Eventually you’ll have the moment.
One thing I think is lost in a lot of these conversations is how much FUN I am having. I’ve been coding for…well if you count copying BASIC from books into a Timex Sinclair, about 40+ years. Maybe professionally for 30+? I haven’t had this much FUN building since back when I copied those games from that little red book of BASIC programs. These tools make even mundane work fun for me, cause you need to have your workflow right. So coding becomes more like Factorio or something. Keep optimizing your setup, then simplify, the optimize, then simplify.
Syntax was always something that felt like a hurdle. I always rolled my eyes at people that get lost in the minutia of a language. Like I remember the Perl neck beards from way back. lol.
I learned what I needed to get the task done, then moved on. Likely forgetting 90% of the details anyway, so I could keep an eye on what I considered important. Architecture. Functionality. Separation of Concerns. Could I dive back in and figure out the details again if needed, sure. No problem.
NOW these tools let me work at this abstraction level even more.
And I’m here for it.
Just amazing this is where we are at as an industry.
Well this isn’t code, but I’ve been working on a memory system for Claude Code. This portion provides semantic search over the session files in .claude/projects. It uses OpenAI for embeddings so not completely local (would be easy to modify) and storage in ChromaDB.
All I know is that I have built more in the past 10 months than I ever have. How do you quantify for the skeptics the mental shift that happens when you know you can just build stuff now?
COULD I do this stuff before? Sure. But I wouldn’t have. Life gets in the way. Now, the bar is low so why not build stuff? Some of it ships, some of it is just experimentation. It’s all building.
Trying to quantify that shift is impossible. It’s not a multiplier to productivity you measure by commits. It’s a builder mind shift.
"I have built more in the past 10 months than I ever have."
Correction. The genAI has built it.
I haven't got any skin on either side here, but doesn't the fact the genAI can build it imply that what you are doing is heavily trodden ground, that there will be less and less need for developers like you, and will gradually lead to many developers (like you) being cut out of the market entirely.
For personal stuff it's wonderful. For work, it seems like a double edged sword that will eventually cut the devs that use it (and those that don't). Even if the business owners aren't completely daft and keep a (vastly diminished) workforce of dev/AI consultants on board, that could easily exclude you or me.
It's going well if all the jobs it eradicates can be replaced with just as many jobs (they can't), or the powers that be catch on and realise there isn't that many jobs left for humans to do and institute some form of basic income system (they won't).
"The genAI has built it" -- this is the core point. If I did nothing except complain about AI for the past 10 months, would these projects exist? No they would not. So. I. Built. It.
If you actually use these tools, really use them. You realize that it's an augmentation not a replacement. Simply because the training data is what has already come before (for now!). The LLMs need help, direction, focus...and those are learned skills dependent on the tooling. Not to mention ideas.
And sure, I imagine the software development workforce will change quite a bit, probably this year, no doubt about that.
But the need for builders will not change. I imagine that the 'builder' role will change to be traditional software developers, designers, sales people, writers, c-suite...whatever.
So I think you are right. "That could easily exclude you or me". 100% correct. The required skill set to be a builder is changing on a weekly basis. The only way to keep up is to keep building with these tools. Trying things. Experimenting. Otherwise, yes, you will probably be replaced. By a builder.
I redesigned my app Back2Back to lean into the music discovery angle.
Create a DJ persona using GPT-5 in high thinking with web search tooling, or just use the default personas. GPT-5 uses the persona's style guide to make selections, another GPT-5 matches the selection to Apple Music, and a final GPT-5 validates the selection.
If you are the type of music fan that has been unimpressed by any AI DJ features, I urge you to give my app a try and give me feedback! I am passionate about music and have put a lot of work into getting the best results possible, but am always looking to improve the prompting.
Suggestion 2 - don’t require iOS, period. A lot of people are on Android, as they feel iOS is not that great. You’re missing out on a lot of users and unless you require a specific feature that only Apple has then you should just make it a website/webapp instead of specifically targeting iOS.
Suggestion - don’t require the latest iOS26. A lot of people aren’t installing it as it’s not great. You’re missing out on a lot of users and unless you require a specific feature that only 26 has then it’s no necessary to mandate 26.
I find these takes so odd. Porn is the early adopter of EVERY technology. When non-linear editing software was invented in the 90s by Avid, who was the first industry to use them? It might not be advertised, but it's true. Porn leads the way. lol. This is no different.
This isn't really porn adopting ChatGPT, it's OpenAI allowing porn. There was nothing stopping Pornhub from releasing their own LLM. If porn became a feature gated behind YouTube Premium I would probably say "wow they really need customers huh".
Me too, but that was in the OpenAI developer console, which is a different product than ChatGPT, so I wouldn't be surprised if one would have to submit it again.
I had no idea so many people still clung to these lines!
Personally, I see huge value. I’ve built more in the past year than I ever have before. Ideas that used to go on a list, now get implemented in a weekend. The ones that are good, I’ve shipped. Others get played with, tested, and set aside. Not due to lack of quality, but the idea wasn’t right. Some need more thought so I’ll keep testing, and tweaking over time.
Evidence? Those projects would not exist if not for these tools. Not because I couldn’t write them, but because I WOULDN’T have written them.
But I’ve given up trying to convince people. If you don’t think it works, great. Don’t use it. That’s fine with me!
I’d urge you to keep trying though. Hopefully you have the moment as well. And if you think, “it’s ok for some things, but not what I do”, well…just don’t wait a year before trying again. Keep an open mind, and integrate the tools into your workflow everyday. Not as a one off “ok fine, I’ll test this stuff” grumpy kind of way, but in an honest iterative way where you are using the tools on a daily basis, even in a small way. For docs. Whatever. Just keep using them. Eventually you’ll see. Eventually you’ll have the moment.
One thing I think is lost in a lot of these conversations is how much FUN I am having. I’ve been coding for…well if you count copying BASIC from books into a Timex Sinclair, about 40+ years. Maybe professionally for 30+? I haven’t had this much FUN building since back when I copied those games from that little red book of BASIC programs. These tools make even mundane work fun for me, cause you need to have your workflow right. So coding becomes more like Factorio or something. Keep optimizing your setup, then simplify, the optimize, then simplify.
Syntax was always something that felt like a hurdle. I always rolled my eyes at people that get lost in the minutia of a language. Like I remember the Perl neck beards from way back. lol.
I learned what I needed to get the task done, then moved on. Likely forgetting 90% of the details anyway, so I could keep an eye on what I considered important. Architecture. Functionality. Separation of Concerns. Could I dive back in and figure out the details again if needed, sure. No problem.
NOW these tools let me work at this abstraction level even more.
And I’m here for it.
Just amazing this is where we are at as an industry.