I've been coding by hand for nearly 20 years. I don't get any rush from generating code with agents. Most of the time I just feel loss.
Coding to me has always been the work of a craftsman. I spent years learning syntax, studying APIs, and generally becoming an expert in a language I could then use to exactly express myself. My code became my way of of telling a story. I picked that language not only because it was the right tool for the job, but because I liked the community, I liked the direction of the tool, and I liked writing it.
Agents obliterate all of that. Before, source code was like exploring a canyon. Each function, loop, and nested brackets was someone's choice. There was an implicit story to follow. Agentic code is that valley after the glaciers have retreated. A good illustration of what I'm afraid of losing is in those videos cataloging the [the rapidly dwindling sanity of valve programmers as expressed through code comments](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k238XpMMn38). When AI generates your code, you lose that context. You lose that human connection to code that I care so much about.
Unfortunately, I don't think the human touch was as high-of-value to other developers as I previously thought. I've realized that for most developers, it was never about the journey, it was about getting to the destination as quickly as possible. We were infected with a plague of idea-guys and didn't even know it.
That's okay.
There are a billion things in the world where what was once the sole dominion of craftsmen is now shared with machines. Tables and chairs used to be all handmade, now I can order one online and it comes in a self-assembly kit. For 99% of people, code is not the objective. The tool they can use is. They don't understand how it works, or what choices you made. It's story would be lost on them anyway, and that's okay. They just need the self-assembly kit.
I use AI when it makes sense. Writing tests, refactoring big changes, reviewing pull requests, and generating the CUD in CRUD after I define the data and how to get it. Stuff I'd send to my junior engineering assistant. I now get to spend more time working on what I want to work on. I just can't forget that learning is effort, and if I skip all of that, I'm no better than anyone else with access to Claude.
I hear a lot of developers coping with AI by saying that what makes them unique is their ideas or understanding of systems. Does anyone really believe that AI will not get cheaper, smaller, smarter, and easier to run locally? It will come for you, and understand your systems better than you.
It's all a game of balance and incentives. If you want to understand code, you need to write it. If you don't care about code, and just want what it can give you, generate it and realize that you're atrophying a unique skill. Feeling hopeless about all of this?
Outside of work, nobody is making you be productive. You can just write code to enjoy it. Anyone who tells you differently is getting off at a different station.