my opinions on agentic coding
a couple months ago (half a year if i remember correctly), i decided to take some advice from some family members of mine, and installed cursor. i tried using it to develop a simple video editing script for a video i needed to make, i told it to use moviepy, and it worked like a charm. little did i know, this would become an addiction, and would destroy everything i know about the nature of the creation of software.
so i’d picked up cursor, and so i continued messing around until i could no longer mess around with the error message of too much, and so i hopped on to the next agent: github copilot. then i continued messing around, ran into limits, and hopped onto windsurf. then i continued messing around, ran into limits, and hopped on and on and on… and you know what?
i started to enjoy it, that joy of mindless creation: simply having an idea, and popping it into existence. i was no longer really thinking of code, but moreso of solutions. i had sort of become a product manager less a programmer. of course, i still coded, but it mostly was just tweaks.
i had not yet realized this has completely overtaken me: i used to hate vibe coding with a passion! and yet… here i was, prompting agents everywhere and anywhere! i even looked past the barrier of code and onto mcp servers! it managed my notion, for god’s sake!
eventually, i stopped the hopping, and arrived at opencode.
now, at opencode, i stopped for a little bit: this worked, in fact this worked great, for a while. while it had no limits, i personally found opencode to be quite limiting in other factors, namely how dumb their models were. they would usually take a whole lot of prompts to solve a simple task. and so, i looked past the 20$ barrier…
onto claude code.
(i should preface this with the fact that i have only been using claude code for a week or so, so take this with a salt shaker.)
and so, i bit the 20$/mo bullet, and bought myself a subscription to claude pro. i launched claude code for the first time on a project in which i have not vibe coded at all, and decided to test it out. i first commited my changes to git so i can easily revert back to the stone age if neccesary, and asked it something like the following:
“given the following project, inspect the codebase, and write a plan on how to add blah blah blah. then, when i give you the get-go, begin implementing said blah blah blah.”
instantly, it came to life: three explore agents popped up, all doing different things: one exploring the codebase, one thinking of how to properly add the feature, and one planning based on results from the other two. it was incredible, if i do say so myself. then, just watching it run commands, and do exactly what i thought it would do, was amazing!
in the middle of its doing, i stopped it, and asked it to do something a certain different way. instantly, it continued, exactly where it left off. all the while i was saying to myself, in my language (which sounds like im insane with how i say it), in a sort of manic manner, “it works for meeeeeee! for me, it works!!!!!”
i had officially gone insane. i might not have been truly vibe coding since i was checking the results and using the model more as a tool for quick development, but even this was insane to my reluctant brain. to other people, normalcy in this day and age, but for me, insanity. pure, unadulterated insanity.
why have i been so stubborn? why have i refused to try even a tiny lick of the lollipop all this time? i am going to be honest here, this might sound like a crypto bro opinion…
i thought it would replace me, and i would no longer need to work. i thought it would replace me, and i would no longer be useful. i thought it would replace me, and my work could no longer be credible.
perhaps i have been viewing it a wrong and different way this time, perhaps it had simply clicked for me while working on said fateful video editing project, who knows!
how i got to this point, i do not know. how i will get out of it, i do not know either.
do i even want to get out? is it something ill want to do in the future?
who knows, the tools shaped me, i may be too far gone now.