In work we use LLMs exclusively. Nobody writes code anymore. It's all hands off and we have a high level understanding of how things work but no more than that.

When it comes to my side project, I was adding features at breakneck speed with Claude but I realized I have no clue how the new code works or what it changes or breaks. I spent many years of my life working on this project and I don't want to turn it into another vibe coded black box, especially without an org of other engineers to help.

So last night, I abandoned my Claude branch with all the fancy new things and started hand coding again.

It was very very satisfying. Sure, there was monotony. I changed some variable names and I had to chase down all the places they were referenced, comment out tons of stuff to get things working and then slowly bring it back in, but it felt like coming home to an untidy house after living in hotels for half a year, and starting to clean up. Yeah there's work to do, but this place is mine. My own. I know where things live.

It's given me love and energy for the project again (at least for now, I hope it continues!) and I'm delighted to say I took a good look at code I myself had written pre Claude and I still found many ways to write it better, refactor, make it more readable and efficient. I haven't forgotten.

If anyone is feeling the despair of not coding anymore, stairs you're losing your edge, I would suggest you ditch Claude for a few days at least and see how you feel. Your mileage may vary, but it's given me back something I thought was gone forever