This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by PRANTA Dutta
We are living in what I like to call The Golden Age of Instant Gratification for Developers™.
Want to build a web app? Done.
Want it to have a machine-learning-powered recommendation system? Easy.
Want it to look like it was designed by a Silicon Valley design team that charges \$800/hour? That’s just one prompt away.
AI has essentially turned us all into Tony Stark. Except instead of Jarvis being a sarcastic British guy in our ear, he’s a chatbox that occasionally “hallucinates” and confidently gives you wrong answers—but you still trust him because… he sounds right.
And listen, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying AI is bad. I love AI. I use it daily. But somewhere along the way, it started to feel like… the fun was gone.
Remember the old days?
If you’re a dev who’s been around for a while, you probably remember this:
- You have an idea.
- You’re excited.
- You open your code editor and immediately realize you have no clue how to do half of what’s in your head.
- You start Googling.
- You find a Stack Overflow answer from 2012 that doesn’t work anymore but you still try it anyway.
- You spend hours debugging something trivial.
- You fix it. You feel like a god.
That feeling—that pure, uncut satisfaction—was the reason you kept building stuff. You earned the result.
The AI era feels… different.
Now? You type:
“Hey AI, build me a React app with authentication, a backend, a database, and a cute little dark mode toggle.”
You wait 30 seconds, sip your coffee, and… there it is. You didn’t fight for it. You didn’t suffer. You didn’t even get to yell “WHY IS THIS NOT WORKING?!” at 2 AM.
And without the struggle, the victory feels hollow.
It’s like playing a video game with infinite ammo and god mode—you technically “won,” but deep down you know you didn’t earn it.
Why is this happening?
It’s simple: we humans love the process more than the product when it comes to creativity and problem-solving.
When you hit a problem and solve it yourself, you get a dopamine rush. You feel ownership. You remember the exact line of code you wrote to fix that bug because it was your blood, sweat, and tears that made it work.
AI shortcuts remove that emotional investment. You still get the product, but you lose the story behind it. And without the story… it’s just code.
So, what now?
I’m not saying throw away AI tools and go live in a cave writing assembly code on stone tablets. AI is amazing for speeding up boring stuff, and it can absolutely help you learn faster.
But maybe—just maybe—don’t use it for everything.
Struggle a little. Get stuck. Fail a few times. Write code that doesn’t work and then fix it. Because that’s where the fun lives.
If you miss that old-school, “I actually built this” feeling, check out Codecrafters. They throw you into coding challenges where AI can’t just spoon-feed you the solution. You’ll have to think, and when you win, you’ll feel that glorious dopamine hit again.
You can sign up right here.
If AI is the fast food of coding, Codecrafters is like cooking your own meal from scratch—harder, but infinitely more satisfying.
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by PRANTA Dutta
PRANTA Dutta | Sciencx (2025-08-09T19:33:04+00:00) You Can Build Whatever You Want With AI These Days, But… It’s Not Fun Anymore. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2025/08/09/you-can-build-whatever-you-want-with-ai-these-days-but-its-not-fun-anymore/
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