I've gone back and forth too. Your point about the missed learning/re-enforcement opportunity is real, and the temptation to gloss over things is too.
That said, I'm starting to think differently about what I consider worth learning deeply. Given that syntax is fully automatable, it is now less of a priority for me. I'm focusing more on architecture, protocols, and product and on trying to build software that actually helps me and folks in my life, especially out side of work.
For example I had 3/4 toy projects last month [mostly vibecoded], a gag birthday website for my brother, a presentation framework I used for my kid's spanish class, etc.
I ended up getting curious about whether there was a way to sidestep traditional dns / cert deployment mechanisms and host vibe coded apps more simply. Ended up building p2claw dot com. Surprisingly webrtc is a good way to serve peer to peer web apps. I've been using it a bunch and it works well. I won a demo day presentation with it and the creator of webrtc replied to one of my tweets :)
I guess tl;dr, AI code let's you think about bigger things and try more unexpected projects.
I've gone back and forth too. Your point about the missed learning/re-enforcement opportunity is real, and the temptation to gloss over things is too.
That said, I'm starting to think differently about what I consider worth learning deeply. Given that syntax is fully automatable, it is now less of a priority for me. I'm focusing more on architecture, protocols, and product and on trying to build software that actually helps me and folks in my life, especially out side of work.
For example I had 3/4 toy projects last month [mostly vibecoded], a gag birthday website for my brother, a presentation framework I used for my kid's spanish class, etc.
I ended up getting curious about whether there was a way to sidestep traditional dns / cert deployment mechanisms and host vibe coded apps more simply. Ended up building p2claw dot com. Surprisingly webrtc is a good way to serve peer to peer web apps. I've been using it a bunch and it works well. I won a demo day presentation with it and the creator of webrtc replied to one of my tweets :)
I guess tl;dr, AI code let's you think about bigger things and try more unexpected projects.
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