Raising the floor, lowering the ceiling

I find that it is now very easy to write a lot of software. In the past, if I was writing this much software I would take that as a strong signal that I was become a better developer. Now, I write more software than ever but the link between output and improvement is broken.There is a feeling I get when working on a hard problem and writing the code by hand. Taking the thing I need to do and distilling it into code was the work. Seeing the computer do the thing I wanted it to do was the reward. I might try a dozen failed ways to solve a problem. Learning a bit more every time I got stuck or the thing I tried didn't work.I don't get that feeling when working with agents. I output a lot more and there's still a buzz building something that works but most interaction with Claude is abstract from the code in a way that makes it feel different. If the output is wrong, the next step is to say "this output is wrong" and let it try again. Not a bad feeling, just a different one.In a lot of…