I have been programming since 1978 and thoroughly enjoy it.

Nothing more satisfying to me than thinking about nifty algorithms, how to wring out every last drop of performance from a system, or more recently train AI models or build agentic systems. From object models to back end, graphics to communications protocols, I love it all.

But that said, I am getting on a bit now and don't particularly enjoy all the typing. When AI rolled around back in 2022 I threw myself into seeing how far I could push it. Copy pasting code back and forth between the chat window and the editor. It was a very interesting experience that felt fresh, even if the results were not amazing.

Now I am a hundred percent using Claude Code with a mixture of other models in the mix. It's amazing.

Yesterday I worked with CC on a CLAP plugin for Bitwig written in C and C++. It did really well - with buffer management, worker threads and proper lock-free data structures and synchronization. It even hand rolled its own WebSocket client! I was totally blown away.

Sure, it needs some encouragement and help here and there, and having a lot of experience for this kind of stuff is important right now for success, but I can definitely see it won't be that way for much longer.

I'm just so happy I can finally get round to all these projects I have had on the back burner all these years.

The productivity is incredible, and things mostly just work. It really brings me a lot of joy and makes me happy.