I'm on this boat. I can use LLMs to skip the boring bits like generating API glue classes or simple output functions.

Example:

I'm building a tool to grab my data from different sites like Steam, Imdb, Letterboxd and Goodreads.

I know perfectly well how to write a parser for the Goodreads CSV output, but it doesn't exactly tickle my brain. Cursor or Cline will do it in minutes.

Now I've got some data to work with, which is the fun bit.

Again if I want to format the output to markdown for Obsidian, the LLM can do it in a few minutes and maybe even add stuff I didn't think about at first.

Yeah, I've found it great at XML too. All sorts of boilerplate stuff works so well. As it the project gets bigger Ive had to think for longer about things and step in more, but as you said, that's usually the fun, meaty bit that you want to work on anyway. My app is about 15k lines of code now, and it's a bit more work than at the beginning.

this is the key idea right here. LLMs are not replacing good coders, they're electric yak shavers that we should all learn how to use. The value add is real, and incremental, not revolutionary.