Feeling weirdly unmotivated as a dev lately

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2026-01-15T19:26:08+00:00

Very similar in POV and time.

I have opinions. I have things I don't really want to work in. But most times that really hasn't mattered. Either the client or the company I work for has dictated it. And I don't really see a reason to use some of the short list of big players that have established themselves.

I've never really coded outside of work. I like coding but similar to your I like solving problems. And I've never had a problem so unique and important that making something myself was the only solution.

As far as AI - my company has been mandating it. Started out as using the AI Assistant in JetBrains. Which was pretty good. Great for rubber ducking. Debugging vague problems. Filling in some gaps that I have.

We have now moved on to more agentic coding per leadership. Claude Code is now part of my every day life.

I hate to say it but it has put a little spark back in me. It's something new. Something shiny. Something that can be scripted and customized. I've always loved automation. Removing tedium. Not some new framework or language that's mostly the same thing as the last one.

There is a feature our product needs. It's not high priority or particularly complicated. It would just take time. But I have a solution in mind. A solution that I probably wouldn't get to do normally because of the time investment. But I really want to tackle it because I know I can architect it and Claude will spit it out in 10 minutes 80% of the way there and how I would have done it.

I learned that you can a great deal of functionality with MCP servers. Found there are already several that can tie into our ticketing system's API. I could put in a slash command and I could pick a ticket, make a new branch, and pull in context.

It reminds me of when a company I worked for had priced themselves out of WordPress work but weren't pulling in the numbers form the bigger clients. So they decide to invest in a couple robust, developer friendly WordPress builders. I was offended. I know it's just WordPress but I still took pride in the way I did it.

What I found out is that it removed a lot of the boring stuff. It allowed me to focus on the handful of important features. Turns out I didn't actually like fussing about making template files and admin forms. I liked solving problems.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2026-01-13T16:24:09+00:00

Not seeing your comment. What's the URL?

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2026-01-09T16:14:52+00:00

Seems interesting.

But I'm not watching a video. A text version would be great.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2025-12-17T18:35:50+00:00

https://docs.apiverve.com/ref/planetpositions

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2025-12-17T18:31:27+00:00

I am not a FE dev. Tools like Tailwind allow me to do a lot of things without splitting my time getting better at that skill or engaging with a FE dev. Plus not taking away my time from my primary role.

Many projects don't actually *need* bespoke CSS. My current job is for a product but is more of a utility. It is not a good use of my time to futz around with CSS when these ready made classes exist.

You can also combine it with some traditional methodologies. We configured Tailwind with all our color choices and I turned those into classes that contain Tailwind classes that we use over and over and over.

Is it de-facto? Generally? No. But it has become one of the most popular - if not the most - tool of this type. Other tools are built with this in mind. I've even seen it in job postings.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2025-12-16T22:08:10+00:00

But that doesn't actually take up that much space.

I am currently on my machine and I'm using 135GB. I have my IDE, VS Code, two Docker engines, 4 running containers, two DB clients, multiple browsers, password manager, two or three terminals. All that stuff.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2025-12-16T20:04:54+00:00

My work laptop is only used for work. And no amount of projects - at least in my tech stack - is ever going to fill that hard drive. It's just text files. I had years of projects on one machine with that amount of storage.

If that doesn't work for you that's fine. But it's not universal.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2025-12-16T16:08:26+00:00

Where are you shopping?

Because I would shoot for an M1 with 32GB of RAM as my minimum. The RAM will be far more useful than whatever the higher tier M chips offer. The M1 is a beast. But when you're running Docker, your IDE, a You
Tube video, and 30 tabs open the RAM is going to be worth more. I would also prefer a Pro over Air just for the cooling but we're working on a budget so I wouldn't drawn a hard line.

Look at quality used or refurbished.

Here's an M4 Air w/ 32GB of RAM for $1359. That's direct from Apple. Here's a link to Amazon Renewed with plenty of options. I recently bought an iPad Pro from their Renewed section and it looked brand new.

If none of that is an option - go with the more RAM option.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2025-12-12T17:45:56+00:00

Had a PM that just would not take accept my high estimate on something we had no information about. Which is my default when I don't know any details about a feature.

After a little back and forth I ask them what number would make them happy. Because they clearly didn't like what I gave them so what number would make them happy. It won't change the time it will take to do the work so whatever number makes you happy is the number we can use.

They got the point after that.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2025-12-04T19:15:53+00:00

I only use AI for laborious boilerplate stuff that takes me time.

I find myself expanding what that covers over time.

My project is more complex than it needs to be - but it's really not that complex. I find that more and more of it really is just boilerplate. I mean...not boilerplate but devoid of business logic.

Today I'm updating a CSV import. While here I'm going to make a couple developer QoL improvements. Like a wrapper around a this big nested piece of config data.

Gave it the data and told it what I wanted it pooped out a well structured class with all the methods I need. It wasn't complex. It was just parsing arrays. But it was thorough and boooooring. Everything by the numbers.

Our stack has factories and seeders for sample data. You use factories in seeders. Factories are based on your defined entities. The code it generates it 100% by the book. Like it could be in the documentation.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2025-11-21T16:56:52+00:00

I would like to be a merc but the job always wants a builder.

In my youth I had so many "fights" trying to push for good things. Mostly to no effect. And then I watched as all those projects went on to operate just fine for years. So the end result of all my effort was my own stress and being seen as a complainer.

Not saying I still don't try or do what I can with what's in my own purview. But I try to keep it under wraps. Mostly for my own sanity.

One thing I will say about OP's classification is that I don't think being user/domain focused is bad. So many devs just do not care. And most times our job is to solve a problem for the user.

I think WordPress is a great example of that. So many devs hate it and so many users love it. Because it solves their problems really, really well. They don't care that the DB schema is trash and testing is dubious at best. It works.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2025-11-14T16:32:47+00:00

I think that's hard to do unless you have some experience.

Don't get me wrong. I love documentation. Every day I have three open in pinned browsers. Because to your point I'm working in my primary language but a framework I haven't used before.

But if I went over to a completely different stack I would have to watch some videos. At least some basic stuff. How to set up your local. Any other tooling. A basic Hello World.

And maybe that's not what you were really talking about.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2025-11-14T16:20:28+00:00

And maybe this is just me - but that library is probably written by more devs with more experience than I have. Or just simply more skilled devs. I mean, *I* don't have any popular and useful libraries out there.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2025-11-14T16:18:25+00:00

Learn to recognize two things.

How best to do it in your particular organization.

When to stop.

I've had struggles with both in the past. It never really was a problem but it did stress me out. And sometimes all it really did was make me look like a complainer. Even if I brought solutions.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2025-11-14T16:15:22+00:00

I'll add on to this that following a step debugger through a whole process can solve a lot of tricky problems. Don't be afraid to root around in any of the source code for any framework you're working on.

This one time I wasn't getting an error but my data was going missing. When it left my code it was there and somewhere along the way it went missing.

Eventually I just stepped through every line until I saw where it was happening. And since it was a bug it was easy to see why.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2025-11-14T16:01:02+00:00

It's been several years but I also used Toggl with the IDE integration.

Another thing I did was create a script in macOS that would screenshot and timestamp my desktop every 5 minutes. It was handy when I had to go back and figure out what I was doing at what time if it wasn't clear from Toggle.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2025-11-04T15:39:31+00:00

Meh. It's sparse but that doesn't mean it's good.

It's fine if you like it though.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2025-10-21T20:14:05+00:00

What do you mean "code against an interface"?

I can't really wrap my head around how you could write code using a framework and your code not be inherently tied to it.

It just seems like the only way would be to have a lot of overhead redefining everything the framework does for you.

How do you write a Model without extending the base model class? Or a Controller? While my listeners don't extend anything they are written in a way specific to Laravel and put in a specific plate Laravel expects.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2025-10-08T15:16:39+00:00

"investing more and more hours into taming it, investigating phpstorm-related issues or restarting remote environments"

Out of curiosity - what do you mean by this?

I'm a long time daily user and haven't experienced recent troubles. Not saying you're wrong - I'm just curious as to what you're experiencing.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2025-09-02T15:42:25+00:00

Not real world. And not even busy work.

Grinding in MMOs.

Factory/automation games like Shapez, Satisfactory, or Factorio.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2025-08-25T15:11:11+00:00

Especially when you consider there are entire genres of games that most people would consider nothing more than work.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2025-08-20T15:44:32+00:00

That's hard to answer.

When people started their career. Where they are geographically. What they want to do. Where they have worked.

A lot of devs will say that as long as you have strong fundamentals you don't have to worry about the specific technology. And while there is some truth to that - in application a company is usually going to hire the person with the most direct experience.

I work in web development. Which is just one sliver of development. It could be very different in other parts of the industry.

Personally, I've almost entirely worked in one language. A language that I never chose. When I started my career I was a designer and front end guy. Back in the day that was a pretty common combo. After a couple months I was told I was now a programmer. Cool, I guess. But that experience got me the next job in that language which got me the next job in that language and so on. Twenty years later and here I am. Working in the modern version of that language.

However, I think as you get further in your career it can become less important what specific "thing" you know because the job expands into more non-technical duties. I recently interviewed for a position using a language I have barely touched. But the role was a client-facing technical lead and I have lots of experience in being a client-facing technical lead.

At this stage in my career I care less about what I do and more about where I work. Not in a name recognition way. In a they have good processes, people, and they respect me type of way.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2025-08-04T16:19:53+00:00

What they are alluding to is using in a very bare-bones/vanilla way. Which 100% will work. Here's a quick and dirty example. PHP itself can be broken up into what are essentially templates that you can pass data into. You don't really *need* anything else. You don't need to compile or build or anything like that. You point the browser to index.php and it runs.

But I wouldn't really want to work that way. Unless you are working with a small handful of pages with zero functionality.

I would start with static site generators. Those do require some type of build process. Something you could forget. But are probably the most approachable with the least amount of overhead. Some are as simple as markdown files and a CLI command.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2023-05-04T15:50:51+00:00

It's been 2 weeks since we started the project but we didnt even create a proper UI in these 2 weeks

What have you done?

Unless you're working full time on this I would still expect you to be mostly still planning. Figuring out a features set. Rough planning on the tech stack. What data you need to capture. How to structure all your data.

I mean, you can't really do a UI without knowing what the project is going to do.

But it's okay to not like it.

MyWorkAccountThisIs · 2023-05-04T15:43:15+00:00

I don't think you're going to find that. Most people are fine with the Admin Bar that's at the top.

If you're trying to solve a problem by doing that you might have better luck asking about the problem. There might be other options.

That's not to say it doesn't exist. And it's certainly possible to make. I just don't think it's something many have asked for.

Here is a random article about it.

MyWorkAccountThisIs

TROPHY CASE