Senior Developer Skills in the AI Age

As a long time hobby coder, like 25 years and I think I’m pretty good(?), this whole LLM /vibecoding thing has zapped my creativity the past year or so. I like the craft of making things. I used tools I enjoy working with and learn new ones all the time (never got on the JS/react train). Sometimes I have an entrepreneur bug and want to create a marketable solution, but I often just like to build. Im also the kind of guy that has a shop he built, builds his own patio deck, home remodeling, Tinker with robotics, etc. Kind of just like to be a maker following my own creative pursuit.

All said, it’s hard on me knowing it’s possible to use llm to spit out a crappy but functional version of whatever I’ve dreamt up with out satisfaction of building it. Yet, it also seems to now be demotivating to spend the time crafting it when I know I could use llm to do a majority of it. So, I’m in a mental quagmire, this past year has been the first year since at least 2000 that I haven’t built anything significant in scale. It’s indirectly ruining the fun for me for some reason. Kind of just venting but curious if anyone else feels this way too?

I can echo your sentiment. Art is the manifestation of creativity, and to create any good art you need to train in whatever medium you choose. For the decade I've been a professional programmer, I've always argued that writing code was a creative job.

It's been depressing to listen to people pretend that LLM generated code is "the same thing". To trivialize the thoughtful lessons one has learned honing their craft. It's the same reason the Studio Ghilbi AI image trend gives me the ick.