If there was one word to describe me it would be “tinkerer.”

I enjoy the gritty details, making things better even if just slightly, and the process of exploration and learning brings me immense joy.

While I like pushing myself in every regard such as mentally, physically, etc. Computers and software development has been a particular medium I have found endless curiosity in. With it I can build literally anything, and just on curiosity alone I have built some things from scratch that I am very proud of. Often times building much more complicated than I need to, just because I was not aware of an existing solution.

The Threat

But AI has threatened to take that all away from me. Not because it can work “faster” or “better” but because it takes the tinkering, the thinking, the exploring out of software development for me.

Now don’t get me wrong. If you are a professional software developer not using AI, you are probably going to be left behind. Professionally I would consider myself an advanced user with a strong background not just in AI but in machine learning. And my background in tinkering, figuring stuff out, and building things makes me far more proficient in using AI than someone without it.

But just like an artist who needs to use AI tools to get marketing material over to a client…

Sometimes, I just want to paint.

The Plan

For the sake of painting, I will be developing some projects for the most part without the use of AI. Just because I actually want to learn more again and then will be even more effective at using AI down the line.

Since I would consider myself a professional user of both JS and Python (deep into libraries, Bun, HTMX, etc.), I had a little stint with Go and would like to go back.