I spent a lot of my time on the internet because I was lonely in my teens and these connections were exciting. I learned software dev because I was a nerd that loved math and loved the concept of building software, having complete control on how it's done. That was the concept I signed up for.
Software dev today is sitting in front of a prompt bar, sometimes checking the IDE, sometimes some DevOps, but nothing about it excites me anymore. Even hobby projects are dull because they're done in mere days. Choosing not to use LLMs has little to no reward imo.
I'm slowly moving away from software dev because the rose tinted glasses I saw the job as are shattering
Which is interesting, because I've always been a musician first and software dev as a side interest, and I feel like LLMs have made the software iteration loop fast enough that it feels as exciting as making music for me.
I wonder if there's some blend of software and other interest that might rekindle that novelty for you?
> Which is interesting, because I've always been a musician first and software dev as a side interest, and I feel like LLMs have made the software iteration loop fast enough that it feels as exciting as making music for me.
I don't quite get what you mean by this. Music is a form of expression; it is supposed to be effortless once you are good at it, but software (if we go by a strict definition) is not about expression but about building reliable and efficient systems. Like what do you mean exactly
I am currently exploring music-software-combined-artifacts, and there is a lot of aesthetic and other design taste decisions that go into what I am choosing to make with AI assistance. It feels like self-expression at some level to me - e.g. <a href="https://johnoestmannmusic.com/0009-when-we-become-discoverers/" rel="nofollow">https://johnoestmannmusic.com/0009-when-we-become-discoverer...
If I plugged it into something like an AI song generator and asked it to generate a bunch of sounds kind of like that, I think I could find something more appealing. All of this work to build this feels like a chore that could be prompted away.
Robots in my garage doing woodwork would be nice. They'd be auto-orchestrated by all the spywares and spydevices already in place - and who knowns more about me and my ideas than me. And I don't have to learn anything.
You can buy cedar-scented air fresheners on Amazon. Isn't buying a wooden dresser and an air freshener enough to rekindle the love of your calling? Look, the sides of the dresser are CNC-milled to a level of perfection you could never achieve at home.
I probably didn't phrase that well. I meant that garage woodworking is not necessary, in an economic sense. It's an optional/leisure activity.
And people still do it anyway. Which is great. Because it's still useful, and valuable. Just not necessary.
For me, I've always been interested in music -- but now, I can have an AI generate limitless music, far better than anything I can do with less effort.
Imagine if you never had to pick up a guitar, blowing a trumpet, or even opening a tracker ever again.
You could just ask the AI to make music that made your best efforts look like a kindergartener's painting on the fridge. Isn't that a musician's utopia, surrounded by music without lifting a hand to make it?
I was almost replying to your previous reply by saying something akin that with the text-to-speech you can be illiterate, and that should be a reader's utopia.
Then I got this feeling that there was an odd chance of you being sarcastic.
It's difficult to tell on HN these days. Some replies I read should be sarcasm, but I those bad takes are stone faced.
> I was almost replying to your previous reply by saying something akin that with the text-to-speech you can be illiterate, and that should be a reader's utopia.
> Even hobby projects are dull because they're done in mere days. Choosing not to use LLMs has little to no reward imo.
I'm slowly moving away from software dev because the rose tinted glasses I saw the job as are shattering
Try solving a very hard problem or a very good game. Or at least publish some very good polished software, they all sucks! This really is a paradox, all this doomerism and AI that has solved “coding” and it’s “very good now” and we don’t mot only have not good software, but it’s getting worse! Good lord how the heck we get out of this situation?
> Even hobby projects are dull because they're done in mere days.
This is only true if your definition of "hobby project" is limited to "initial prototype with basic functionality and a generic corporate-looking landing page".
Yeah, a lot of tools that would have made fun weekend projects can now be one-shot by Claude and aren't even worth sharing, because someone who needs that functionality can just use Claude too. But you can accomplish so much more now. Someone just did a hobby project to reverse engineer NVidia drivers and make them work on Windows XP. Dream bigger!
Indeed, your half-broken prototypes that are not worth sharing with the world can be now 10x the scale.
But seriously, I have not seen anyone get far with vibecoded hobby projects. The problem is that removing the pain, the frustration, and the triumph also removes any emotional attachment you have to the project to keep it alive. If it's not making you money, if you're not learning anything, and if everyone can vibecode the same thing... well, it still gives you some short-term rush - as if by magic, your words birthed a piece of software - but then what? Why keep going? Why fix bugs, why keep improving it? If you look back at the past several months of "Show HN"-style posts, it's not pretty.
I've got my hobby project fully working the way I want and ready for the masses. I just am stuck trying to get the app in google/apple stores. Its a mental block, I'm stuck on taking the time to get it through the hoops and then don't really no where to start or want to for that matter with the marketing aspects.
By Nov, 2nd 2026 your hobby project app is released on google Play Store and ready for download and install. Someone besides you - another new user - will install the app.
Google Play Store is just an assumption, cause it's not clear, which store you would prefer first.
Is this target describing your goal, what you are truly want to ship?
I've had a few beta users and I've used it extensively in real mission critical scenarios several times. Very good feedback so far from adversarial non friendly peeps. So I no I have something. I've got a full time well paying Golden handcuff type of real job so you know how that is...
> Even hobby projects are dull because they're done in mere days.
It depends what you're building, and why you're doing it.
For example I've always been interested in compilers and interpreters, and I've spent the past few months writing (by hand) a lisp compiler.
It's nothing special, nobody will use it, and existing solutions already exist. But I've had a lot of fun getting things working.
To highlight two examples, and bearing in mind my output binaries are statically linked with no libc, I wrote a garbage collector in amd64 assembly. Getting that working took a couple of weeks, as I kept finding random segfaults and issues. But now? Now I could write something similar in an afternoon. (And because it was for learning I chose stop&copy instead of mark&sweep. It seemed simpler and easier.)
Secondly I realized, belatedly, that I could implement the "(syscall N arg1 arg2 ..)" primitive in my lisp. Which meant that I could write wrappers like this:
(defconst SYS_mkdir 83)
(defun mkdir (path)
"Create the given directory."
(if (< (syscall SYS_mkdir path (octal "0o755")) 0)
nil
1))
And that let me remove a bunch of assembly code I'd written. Sure writing "system" isn't hard it's just a combination of fork/dup/exec/wait, but I wrote that in assembly using syscalls, and now I have an implementation in more readable lisp.
Nobody will find it too interesting, I'll say again, but writing a compiler (in golang) that has it's own static runtime written in pure assembly? I'm sure some models will eventually one-shot that, but it won't teach anybody anything.
For me hobby projects are either a) to solve a need (which is what led to me writing a toy CP/M emulator), or they're for learning. And for learning the whole point is to type the code yourself, identify the inevitable bugs, and make iterative improvements.
Looking at what I have now? It feels good. Despite the existance of other lisp interpreters, compilers, or the random LLM stuff people do.
It's not a competition, I've not lost anything, and now I think I've internalized the SysV ABI convention, learned about the limits, and implemented trivial things like "print a floating point number in assembly". As well as learning about how to invoke linux syscalls to read the entries in a directory, & etc.
ramon156 · · focus · HN ↗
Software dev today is sitting in front of a prompt bar, sometimes checking the IDE, sometimes some DevOps, but nothing about it excites me anymore. Even hobby projects are dull because they're done in mere days. Choosing not to use LLMs has little to no reward imo.
I'm slowly moving away from software dev because the rose tinted glasses I saw the job as are shattering
[deleted] · · focus · HN ↗
[deleted]
soundworlds · · focus · HN ↗
I wonder if there's some blend of software and other interest that might rekindle that novelty for you?
esikich · · focus · HN ↗
altmanaltman · · focus · HN ↗
I don't quite get what you mean by this. Music is a form of expression; it is supposed to be effortless once you are good at it, but software (if we go by a strict definition) is not about expression but about building reliable and efficient systems. Like what do you mean exactly
soundworlds · · focus · HN ↗
0c3ca83 · · focus · HN ↗
christophilus · · focus · HN ↗
laxd · · focus · HN ↗
BatFastard · · focus · HN ↗
0c3ca83 · · focus · HN ↗
thunky · · focus · HN ↗
If you want a wooden dresser, buy one.
Nobody does woodworking because it's necessary.
OJFord · · focus · HN ↗
dieselgate · · focus · HN ↗
I don’t understand this, can you explain or am I missing something?
stasomatic · · focus · HN ↗
thunky · · focus · HN ↗
And people still do it anyway. Which is great. Because it's still useful, and valuable. Just not necessary.
0c3ca83 · · focus · HN ↗
Imagine if you never had to pick up a guitar, blowing a trumpet, or even opening a tracker ever again.
You could just ask the AI to make music that made your best efforts look like a kindergartener's painting on the fridge. Isn't that a musician's utopia, surrounded by music without lifting a hand to make it?
mcphage · · focus · HN ↗
I think my sarcasm detector is broken. I really hope there’s an implicit /s at the end of that.
0c3ca83 · · focus · HN ↗
surgical_fire · · focus · HN ↗
Then I got this feeling that there was an odd chance of you being sarcastic.
It's difficult to tell on HN these days. Some replies I read should be sarcasm, but I those bad takes are stone faced.
0c3ca83 · · focus · HN ↗
/me gestures towards literacy rates.
mcphage · · focus · HN ↗
Ok, phew.
> But it's not so different from what other people have posted without sarcasm.
I agree—and that’s why I had trouble being sure.
radar1310 · · focus · HN ↗
hollowturtle · · focus · HN ↗
Try solving a very hard problem or a very good game. Or at least publish some very good polished software, they all sucks! This really is a paradox, all this doomerism and AI that has solved “coding” and it’s “very good now” and we don’t mot only have not good software, but it’s getting worse! Good lord how the heck we get out of this situation?
gonzalohm · · focus · HN ↗
expedition32 · · focus · HN ↗
Watching Bob Ross didn't make anyone into a Rembrandt or van Gogh.
mjr00 · · focus · HN ↗
This is only true if your definition of "hobby project" is limited to "initial prototype with basic functionality and a generic corporate-looking landing page".
Yeah, a lot of tools that would have made fun weekend projects can now be one-shot by Claude and aren't even worth sharing, because someone who needs that functionality can just use Claude too. But you can accomplish so much more now. Someone just did a hobby project to reverse engineer NVidia drivers and make them work on Windows XP. Dream bigger!
BatFastard · · focus · HN ↗
If it gets done too fast with LLM you need to think bigger.
lightbendover · · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
socializer · · focus · HN ↗
But seriously, I have not seen anyone get far with vibecoded hobby projects. The problem is that removing the pain, the frustration, and the triumph also removes any emotional attachment you have to the project to keep it alive. If it's not making you money, if you're not learning anything, and if everyone can vibecode the same thing... well, it still gives you some short-term rush - as if by magic, your words birthed a piece of software - but then what? Why keep going? Why fix bugs, why keep improving it? If you look back at the past several months of "Show HN"-style posts, it's not pretty.
lightbendover · · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
swader999 · · focus · HN ↗
energetekk · · focus · HN ↗
Google Play Store is just an assumption, cause it's not clear, which store you would prefer first.
Is this target describing your goal, what you are truly want to ship?
swader999 · · focus · HN ↗
energetekk · · focus · HN ↗
By Nov 2 your app will be launched in google Play Store, and someone besides your beta-users is going to install it via Google Play Store.
Does this describe your goal, yes or no?
sfpk · · focus · HN ↗
rpdillon · · focus · HN ↗
stevekemp · · focus · HN ↗
It depends what you're building, and why you're doing it.
For example I've always been interested in compilers and interpreters, and I've spent the past few months writing (by hand) a lisp compiler.
It's nothing special, nobody will use it, and existing solutions already exist. But I've had a lot of fun getting things working.
To highlight two examples, and bearing in mind my output binaries are statically linked with no libc, I wrote a garbage collector in amd64 assembly. Getting that working took a couple of weeks, as I kept finding random segfaults and issues. But now? Now I could write something similar in an afternoon. (And because it was for learning I chose stop&copy instead of mark&sweep. It seemed simpler and easier.)
Secondly I realized, belatedly, that I could implement the "(syscall N arg1 arg2 ..)" primitive in my lisp. Which meant that I could write wrappers like this:
And that let me remove a bunch of assembly code I'd written. Sure writing "system" isn't hard it's just a combination of fork/dup/exec/wait, but I wrote that in assembly using syscalls, and now I have an implementation in more readable lisp.Nobody will find it too interesting, I'll say again, but writing a compiler (in golang) that has it's own static runtime written in pure assembly? I'm sure some models will eventually one-shot that, but it won't teach anybody anything.
For me hobby projects are either a) to solve a need (which is what led to me writing a toy CP/M emulator), or they're for learning. And for learning the whole point is to type the code yourself, identify the inevitable bugs, and make iterative improvements.
Looking at what I have now? It feels good. Despite the existance of other lisp interpreters, compilers, or the random LLM stuff people do.
It's not a competition, I've not lost anything, and now I think I've internalized the SysV ABI convention, learned about the limits, and implemented trivial things like "print a floating point number in assembly". As well as learning about how to invoke linux syscalls to read the entries in a directory, & etc.