In some ways I feel blessed to have entered this software development industry when I did. For about a decade I got to enjoy the process of learning new skills and applying them in the code I wrote to solve problems. On a day-to-day basis I happily experienced the tactile clickity-clacking on my mechanical keyboard while listing off into a flow state. I felt that what I could do was a kind of wizardy that was both meaningful and valuable. In other ways I feel cursed to have the knowledge of how enjoyable things for us were before the age of AI.

With the rapid improvements to AI code writing tools in the last six months, I have lost nearly all the joy I use to experience from being a software developer. Do not get me wrong, these tools are insanely powerful and there is no way we are going back to a world where software is developed without them. Still, I feel I am forced to contend with the fact that my daily routine has more in common with monotonous industrial revolution era factory work than I would have ever thought possible. The productivity gains are undeniable but so is the vacuous removal of all exercising of creative problem solving and that sense that you, the author of the code, had achieved something.

At the same time, I have been finding new joy in dabbling in radically more, smaller, short lived projects where I can make (facilitate?) something interesting or useful. These are projects that before these tools, the time spend vs payoff never justified themselves. For example, I made an interval clock that works both in the browser and on mobile devices. I made this to use for a D&D campaign I am running where I need events to happen based on real time as well as in-game turns. I did not dig around for something, as I knew I could make something that would do exactly what I wanted in the same time or less. And of course with the added benefit of no baked-in ads or payments blocking core features.

It feels to me that a software developer use to be able to get away with having some amount of indifference to domain of the problems they were solving (ie, tax software, health admin, etc.) as long as the mechanics of problem solving remained satisfying. Now, I think the sense of fulfillment is wrapped up in solving problems that are in a domain that the developer finds interesting.

So what’s my approach? Well I think I am going to lean into Plenumonary Studios to start actively searching out those fulfilling problems and see where that takes me. Hopefully there is sufficient pent up demand for software in spaces where the cost was prohibitive that I can find ongoing fulfillment there.

Meanwhile, I am going to ponder on the possible crisis that is brewing within software development as an industry. The profession is loosing its luster, with nearly everyone I speak to feeling dejected by the current state of things. Many people will leave, and maybe more importantly I somehow doubt that Generation Alpha is going to be chomping at the bit to make up the difference. I could easily be wrong, and perhaps market forces will reward people enough to keep the profession thriving.

I am striving to find the optimistic take in the industry right now, and maybe it is just where I am at right now personally, but its tough. I think there is tremendous possible upside from all of this tooling and the capacity it enables. Yet, it is hard to fight off this feeling that the companies surrounding all this change are missing the forest for the trees with so much of what is going on. For example, if hardware prices do not start to stabilize, we are not far off from phones and computers stretching into luxury good territory. At that point, who are we even writing software for if we start crushing the hardware markets the software runs on? The video game industry has been hit by this first and hardest, and from where I sit it feels more like the tip of the iceberg than a niche market issue.

Right now, I still think I like being a developer and that there is potential for new businesses models to emerge from all of this. At the same time, I have never been more existentially worried in my life.