Show HN: I quit coding years ago. AI brought me back

21•ivcatcher•2h ago

Quick background: I used to code. Studied it in school, wrote some projects, but eventually convinced myself I wasn't cut out for it. Too slow, too many bugs, imposter syndrome — the usual story. So I pivoted, ended up as an investment associate at an early-stage angel fund, and haven't written real code in years.

Fast forward to now. I'm a Buffett nerd — big believer in compound interest as a mental model for life. I run compound interest calculations constantly. Not because I need to, but because watching numbers grow over 30-40 years keeps me patient when markets get wild. It's basically meditation for long-term investors.

The problem? Every compound interest calculator online is terrible. Ugly interfaces, ads covering half the screen, can't customize compounding frequency properly, no year-by-year breakdowns. I've tried so many. They all suck.

When vibe coding started blowing up, something clicked. Maybe I could actually build the calculators I wanted? I don't have to be a "real developer" anymore — I just need to describe what I want clearly.

So I tried it.

Two weeks and ~$100（Opus 4.5 thinking model） in API costs later: I somehow have 60+ calculators. Started with compound interest, naturally. Then thought "well, while I'm here..." and added mortgage, loan amortization, savings goals, retirement projections. Then it spiraled — BMI calculator, timezone converter, regex tester. Oops.

The AI (I'm using Claude via Windsurf) handled the grunt work beautifully. I'd describe exactly what I wanted — "compound interest calculator with monthly/quarterly/yearly options, year-by-year breakdown table, recurring contribution support" — and it delivered. With validation, nice components, even tests.

What I realized: my years away from coding weren't wasted. I still understood architecture, I still knew what good UX looked like, I still had domain expertise (financial math). I just couldn't type it all out efficiently. AI filled that gap perfectly.

Vibe coding didn't make me a 10x engineer. But it gave me permission to build again. Ideas I've had for years suddenly feel achievable. That's honestly the bigger win for me.

Stack: Next.js, React, TailwindCSS, shadcn/ui, four languages (EN/DE/FR/JA). The AI picked most of this when I said "modern and clean."

Site's live at https://calquio.com . The compound interest calculator is still my favorite page — finally exactly what I wanted.

Curious if others have similar stories. Anyone else come back to building after stepping away?

Comments

oidar•1h ago

chriskanan•1h ago

Same here. I’m an AI professor, but every time I wanted to try out an idea in my very limited time, I’d spend it all setting things up rather than focusing on the research. It has enabled me to do my own research again rather than relying solely on PhD students. I’ve been able to unblock my students and pursue my own projects, whereas before there were not enough hours in the day.

ivcatcher•8m ago

This really resonates. The setup cost was always the killer for me too — by the time you get everything working, the motivation is gone. Now I can actually go from idea to prototype in an afternoon. Cool to hear it's having the same effect on actual research.

mjburgess•1h ago

In this sense LLMs are another wave of "end-user programming" like excel formula. This has been the recurring experience of many in these waves.

throwaway2027•1h ago

> Stack: Next.js, React, TailwindCSS, shadcn/ui, four languages (EN/DE/FR/JA). The AI picked most of this when I said "modern and clean."

I guess this is what separates some people. But I always explicitly tell it to use only HTML/JS/CSS without any libraries that I've vetted myself. Generating code allows you now not having to deal with it a lot more.

Cool to hear nonetheless. Can we now also stop stigmatizing AI generated music and art? Looking at you Steam disclosures.

cadamsdotcom•1h ago

Genuine congratulations. Ignore the unconstructive comments you’ll get (I already flagged one.)

This is a revolution, welcome back to coding :)

mk12•1h ago

The "knowledge base" at the bottom is 100% slop. Why? Why inflict this on people?

rob•1h ago

Just another AI generated website with 5000 calculators thrown together that looks like every other single one. From a brand new account with a post that looks like it was also written from ChatGPT. Somehow getting enough votes to show up on my homepage.

Things are definitely changing around HN compared to when it first started.

ivcatcher•1h ago

Fair call — it did kind of explode from one calculator to 60+ I’m a real person (long-time lurker, finally posting), but I get why it looks sus. Things are changing fast, and I’m just happy to be part of the messy early wave. Thanks for the honesty.

throwaway2027•1h ago

Twitter/X incentivizes you to get engagements because with a blue checkmark you get paid for it, so people shill aggressively, post idiotic comments on purpose trying to ragebait you. It's like LinkedIn in for entrepreneurs. Reddit or it's power hungry moderators (shadow)bans people often. The amount of popular websites that people can shill their trash is dwindling, so it gets worse here as a result I assume too.

ivcatcher•1h ago

Yeah, you're right — that part is pretty rough. I wanted to help people actually understand compound interest (it's kind of life-changing once it clicks), but I got lazy and let AI do it without proper editing. Defeats the whole point.

I'll figure out a better way. Thanks for calling it out.

vdupras•1h ago

I think the words are "you're absolutely right".

ivcatcher•1h ago

You're absolutely right too.

groggo•1h ago

Congrats! I never stopped coding, but AI makes it way more productive and fun for sure.

$100 seems like a lot. I guess if you think about it compared to dev salaries, it's nothing. But for $10 per month copilot you can get some pretty great results too.

ivcatcher•9m ago

$100 did feel steep at first. I tried other models but Opus 4 with extended thinking just hits different — it actually gets what I'm trying to do and the code often works first try. Hard to go back after that.

sbondaryev•1h ago

Nice project! One small suggestion, adding a search or category filter would help simplify navigation given the number of calculators available.

ivcatcher•11m ago

Thanks! Honestly I've been feeling that too — finding stuff is getting annoying even for me. Search is coming soon. Good call.

jinushaun•7m ago

I don’t like AI for production code, but I love it for ideation and prototyping. I agree. It really allows you to quickly iterate on ideas without being blocked by implementation details.

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Show HN: I quit coding years ago. AI brought me back

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