When I started in software development (1997), it was exciting. Everybody was just figuring it out as they went. There really was a kind of "magic" in it. Flash to Christopher Lambert saying, "It's a kind of magic." Everybody worked together to find and fix issues, and they were all learning and building together.
At every gathering, we would somehow find the one other person with a passion for software. We’d go to local user group meetings and talk incessantly about whatever we were into (APIs, front-end, hypermedia, dev tools), what side projects we were working on, and how we would run things if we were in charge.
I used to have 'Geekends'. I’d lock myself in my office from Friday at 5 p.m. until Sunday night and build, or study like the weekend I spent learning Docker basics, or compare tools I once spent a weekend comparing JavaScript build systems. I would code and sleep. That’s pretty much it. I loved it. The adventure. The feeling of walking into the wild with nothing but some rough requirements and your wits. Hell yeah!
Over the years, the tech industry has become commoditized, productized, and sanitized. It's a business now. Which is good for those people who want to make a bunch of money in tech, but it was ever about the money for me. I enjoyed being out there on the hairy edge with my fellow pioneers, trying to bend the software to our will. We were ALL figuring it out. Spending endless late nights in small rooms filled with the smell of coffee and pizza farts.
Now, there are private equity firms buying up tech companies. There are entire sub-industries built around software, now. There are people buying and selling stock from companies that don't really have a product, or profit. It just seems to be all about money now, instead of just building stuff.
Look. I understand. Software is a business. There's now lots of money involved. That means more of the greedy business folks are out to make their millions. But for me, I felt a deep comraderie with my fellow developers. And a healthy disdain for salespeople. Even though I know, if it weren't for the salespeople, we wouldn't have paying gigs. It just seems to have shifted to be ALL about money.
Not even close. There’s real magic happening in tech again — and it’s happening in AI. I use AI tools kinda like a search engine that doesn’t just give you links, but gives you leverage. And yeah, that’s pretty cool.
But here’s my dilemma: I don’t want to build the next foundation model. I don’t want to write papers on tokenization strategies.
I've been doing some agentic coding lately. Test-driving entire web applications with an AI agent. I've heard gen-AI called, "The dumbest and most eager intern you've ever worked with", and it's true. It's insane. Its got that same chaotic "magic" feeling. The same, but different. Metaphor? You know it, coach.
I'm getting ready to dive into building a content marketing engine with AI agents. If you follow me on any socials ...AND YOU DEFINITELY SHOULD... you'll see how it goes.You'll let me know when I screw it up, right?
Of course, you will.