There's More to Do Than Ever Before
Most engineers I know have a backlog of ideas they'd build if they had the time. Itches to scratch. Automations. Games. Tools for problems nobody else cares about. But few of us make time for even a handful, because we know what building software actually costs. The coding is the fun part—and it's an increasingly small fraction of the work.
When a well-meaning relative pitches their app idea, they expect us to perk up. Finally, something to do with all that spare time! What actually happens is a sigh, maybe an eye-roll, and they leave thinking we're assholes. But the problem was never a shortage of ideas. It was shortage of time and energy for the everything-else that comes after the fun part.
Agentic dev changes the formula. The hype makes it look trivial now—just vibe your way to a product. And the gains are real: acceleration, gap-filling, removing the boilerplate, augmenting skills you never quite mastered. But those of us who know what it takes to build, maintain, operate, and support software know those challenges didn't evaporate. The agents sped up parts of the loop. The rest still exists.
Working with dev agents today is like wrestling alligators. Powerful, unpredictable, and if you don't stay behind them, they'll take your leg off. But if you can hold their snappers shut, you might get a hell of a ride.
For those of us with ideas rattling around, waiting for some mythical day of leisure, the allure is real. Agents write more code than I can, often better—partly because they enable "the tightest ship I've ever run"—and the ability to refactor fearlessly in a hurry. I'm tempted to try everything now.
So I do. I prototype half a dozen ideas a week. Half of them feel like they have legs. I've got five projects going at once. But these are alligator-wrestling projects—none of them done, most not ready to show anyone. I can touch and taste them, and that just makes me want more.
As I said in my first post, I have a lust for immediate gratification—and agent-driven dev amplifies that. But it's also a kind of prison. Now I have all these eggs waiting to hatch if I'd just sit on them a few more hours a day. How many eggs fit in one nest? How long can I actually sit?
None of this pairs well with hypomanic bipolar II, which puts my mind in a singularly obsessive-yet-creative state. But it's energizing, and a more fun place to live than the flip side.
Wait, what am I doing writing about this? I have eggs in need of hatching.