I watched an interesting interview with Casey Muratori on why he doesn't use AI coding tools. He had a really interesting and comforting take on it.

He talked about the difference in goals for different coders. Some developers are focused on the goal: Ship the product, write the game, publish the app, etcetera. There's nothing wrong with that. But he is concerned with other things. He learned the internals of the PS1 texture mapper. Not because he thinks that's a good way to do texture mapping, but because he was genuinely interested in understanding it.

I was having a bit of a debate with a friend of mine on why I'm not particularly worried about AI coding. He said a variant of 'That's because you don't actually enjoy programming. To you it's just a means to an end.' I understand what he meant. When it comes to getting my job done, I am all about efficiency.

But the past couple of months have reminded me that I really love computers. I have the same fascination with them that I did when I was 10 years old. For a while, I've almost entirely focused on work in terms of computing. I've barely touched any of my hobbyist projects. I've barely written a word other than short Facebook posts about my wife and my dogs. I have barely touched Linux. I switched from a Mac to a Windows computer.

And here I am. I spend 90% of my time on a Mac or in a Linux VM. Or in Linux on a DGX Spark. I am setting up NGINX, WireGuard, and random tools. I've revived all the hobby projects I abandoned in 2014. I'm installing game development tools I had forgotten even exist. My wife and I always joke about how I go into hibernation. LL Cool J talked about it. Life is cycles of up and down. Sometimes you're on an up, and sometimes you're on a down. It doesn't mean you went anywhere. You've been here for years.