It must be said, preferably in bold, that:

> this pervasive sense that "the way to do things now" is seemingly inseparable from a credit card number and monthly charge

…is true, but it only applies to experienced engineers who can sculpt the whole solution using these tools, not just random code. You need the whole learning effort to be able to ground the code the slop generators make. The passion absolutely helps here.

Note this is valid today. I have concerns that I’ll have different advice in 2027…