You're not crazy at all. I engineer pretty-big full stack systems for a living, as a lone coder. I relish when I actually sit down and write the code. To turn a customer concept into animated UI functionality. To write a cron task that auto-generates a weekly prize contest. To hand-craft SQL and add a new feature that lets people see 10 years of data in a new way, on an old codebase.

I've let Claude run around my code and asked it for help, etc. Once in awhile it's able to diagnose some weird issues - like last month, it actually helped me figure out why PixiJS was creating undefined behavior after textures were destroyed on the GPU, in a very specific case. But the truth is, I wouldn't hire an intern or an employee to write my code because they won't be able to execute exactly what I have in mind.

Ironically, in my line of work, I spend 5x as many hours thinking about what to build and how to build it as I do coding it. The fun part is coding it. And, that's the only time I charge for. I may spend 10 hours thinking about how to do something, drawing diagrams, making phone calls to managers and CEOs, and I won't charge any of that time. When I'm ready to sit down and write the code:

I go to a bar.

I turn my phone off.

I work for 6 hours, have 4 drinks, and bill $300 per hour.

I don't suspect that the kind of coding I'm doing, which includes all the preparation and thought that went into it, and having considered all edge cases in advance, is going to be replaced by LLMs. Or by the children who use LLMs. They didn't have much of a purchase on taking my job before, anyway... but sadly the ones who are using this technology now have almost no hope of ever becoming proficient at their profession.

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kaffekaka 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

What you describe sounds very pleasant and I am sure it leads to great results. I kind of envy you.

However, these two things are different: the kind of work that feels fulfilling, meaningful and even beautiful, versus: delivering the needed/wanted product.

A vibe coded solution that basically works, for a quarter of the cost, has advantages.

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moron4hire 4 days ago | parent [-]

We can choose not to live in a throw-away society by first not treating our own work as throw-away.

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kaffekaka 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I agree. But I also think that workflows like that of noduerme might be due to his own preferences as much as the needs of the customer. I am sure it is a good process, but it is also something that feels good for the developer himself. So there will be a drive to use it not for business reasons but for personal. Then it is not based on business needs.

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nradov 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The notion of intentionally making work harder and less productive as some sort of protest against society seems so bizarre and self defeating. No one else will even notice or care. There will be zero broader impact.

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rewgs 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yup. "The downfall of society begins with the individual."

https://x.com/lillybilly299/status/1865133434839990601

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throwaway98797 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

most things don’t endure

greater chance something will if we take more swings

	▲	A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I don't know about that. Too much is allowed to not endure. I don't want to push on that point too hard, because I get what you are saying: things that are worth something will persist. Still, it would be nice if we didn't have the ridiculous churn of stuff.. that does nothing but gather dust only to be thrown away.
	▲	rewgs 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Fully disagree. First, I question the value of something merely enduring. But that aside, implicit in what you're saying here is that the "skill of the swing," so to speak, doesn't matter, whereas only the quantity of swings is what matters. Baseball players clearly negate this.

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spockz 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I like how you work! To be fair though, all of that quality and the other work of thinking is probably already included in the €|$300/hour rate.

	▲	noduerme 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		The $300/hr rate is, to be honest, quite cheap when you don't charge all the time that went into meetings and preparing to write the code. It's probably more like $60/hr if you included all that. However, I don't need to account for my whereabouts the rest of the time, and I can just show a log of the code in progress if I'm ever asked about the time I bill. Of course when you actually sit down and begin to write something new, you begin actually thinking about modules and namespaces and consolidating functions and which things you can streamline, and so on... which is why it's fun. You may change your mind several times as you realize that all of this behavior should go into the parent class or something like that. [I have a special $150/hr rate I sometimes bill for "yak shaving" - clients appreciate it, actually.] But then it's just about painting something which you already have in your mind. I prefer to be paid for my painting, by the hour, rather than ever charging a project rate. I'm always concerned that my consulting is going to be mistaken for wasted time. I never want to be accused of wasting a client's time or overbilling; but they understand that when I sit down to write it, it will be done right the first and last time, and that it could not be done any faster or better than that. Coding is not making a thing that appears to work. It's craftsmanship. It's quite difficult to convince a client that something which appears to work as a demo is not yet suitable or ready for production. It may take 20 more hours before it's actually ready to fly. Managing their expectations on that score is a major part of the work as well.