Look, I get it. The whole “vibe coding” trend where developers just lean back in their gaming chairs and sweet-talk AI into building entire applications is tempting as hell. I mean, who wouldn’t want to Netflix and chill with ChatGPT while it does all the heavy lifting? But here’s the thing – this obsession with AI-driven development is basically just a symptom of how absolutely soul-crushing most programming environments are.
No wonder developers are desperately trying to escape the coding trenches! If I had to wrestle with verbose, mind-numbing languages and frameworks that feel like they were designed by sadists, I’d probably want to retire my keyboard too.
But here’s where I’m different – I’m absolutely, embarrassingly in love with what I do.
Okay, confession time: I wasn’t always this way. When I first started my computer science journey, programming felt like that mandatory gen-ed class you have to suffer through. I just wanted cool applications to exist, and learning to code seemed like an annoying prerequisite – like having to sit through foreplay when you just want to get to the good stuff.
Then I discovered PHP and Laravel, and holy shit, everything changed.
PHP gets a bad rap (kind of like pineapple on pizza), but honestly? It’s been the backbone of the web for decades, and Laravel just makes it absolutely chef’s kiss. Laravel’s whole philosophy revolves around “developer happiness” – the radical idea that writing code should feel good, maybe even a little dirty in the best way possible.
While other frameworks are busy being all uptight and formal, Laravel is out here being the cool, understanding partner who actually cares about your needs. Sure, PHP might not always be the fastest in bed… I mean, in execution… but after years of continuous improvement, it’s gotten really, really good at satisfying developers while still performing when it counts.
This philosophy is more relevant now than ever. Frustrated programmers everywhere are finally waking up to the fact that they don’t have to put up with syntactic abuse, boilerplate hell, and framework commitment issues that change every few months. That’s why AI coding assistants are so appealing – they promise to hide all that unpleasantness behind a pretty interface. But let’s be real, that’s like shoving your dirty laundry under the bed and calling your room clean. The mess is still there, just out of sight!
But the instinct is totally right: Programming should be a vibe! It should make you feel things! It should read like poetry instead of looking like someone had a seizure on the keyboard. It should let you express complex ideas elegantly, prioritizing human understanding over making the computer happy. Laravel absolutely nails this.
And because of that beautiful relationship I have with Laravel, I have zero interest in breaking up with hands-on coding. Why would I want AI to take away the best part of my job? So I can become some kind of middle manager for a bunch of artificial intelligence minions? I’ve had plenty of opportunities to climb the corporate ladder and distance myself from actual development, but I keep refusing because writing Laravel code is literally the highlight of my day. It’s like… the coding equivalent of your favorite comfort food, but somehow it never gets old.
Don’t get me wrong – AI definitely has its place in my development workflow. I’m constantly chatting with language models, asking them to explain APIs, clarify concepts, or help me work through problems when I’m feeling stuck. AI makes an incredible wingman, but I’d rather quit programming entirely than let it take the wheel permanently.
Maybe someday, wanting to write code by hand will seem as quaint as insisting on handwriting letters in a world of instant messaging – something people do as a hobby but with no real practical value.
I honestly have no idea how far we can push these token-hungry AI models or what they’ll be capable of in a few years. I wouldn’t bet against their continued evolution, but I’m pretty sure a huge part of their current appeal to developers stems from the same wisdom that Laravel was built on: Programming should celebrate and empower humans, not torture them.
So yeah, while everyone else is trying to automate their way out of coding, I’ll be over here, still madly in love with Laravel, writing elegant PHP, and having an absolute blast doing it. Some relationships are just too good to give up, you know?
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