https://hexhowells.com/posts/journey.html

HexHowells

I want to be a Journey Programmer Again

Jun 15 2025


I've recently noticed a fundamental shift in how I've been
programming personal projects. Like many people I've become more
reliant on LLM tools as time has passed. On the first release of
ChatGPT, I thought it was cool how language models could write code,
and could be used to both teach me and help me debug stuff. However,
I now more frequently turn to them to write not only boilerplate but
more meaningfully complex code, and am spending less time learning
neat concepts. I wouldn't say my ability to write good code has
diminished, but the energy I have to put my brain power into a
problem has decreased, given how easy it is to use these tools.


Not to be mistaken here for someone hating on LLMs. I think they are
an amazing tool for both learning and writing code, despite it's
flaws. If someone finds that LLMs help supercharge their productivity
then I think that's cool, but I can't help but feel its taking
something away from me, and I'm loosing that deeper desire to write
code and solve problems.

I think the cliche saying that the "journey is better than the
destination" serves as a good framework to model this issue.
Fundamentally, programmers (or individual programming projects) can
be put into two categories: destination programmers and journey
programmers. The destination programmer has an idea, and only cares
about the end result. They want to see the finished product and don't
have much interest in how it's built, what technologies are used, and
the interesting hidden problems that had to be solved to get there.
For these types of people, LLMs are a great tool, since they allow
you to almost abstract away the code, speak in terms of higher-level
end results, and not worry about the details.

Then there are journey programmers, where the actual destination
isn't all that important. Here, a project is more an excuse to learn
a new technology, whether that's a new language, algorithms, or a
whole new paradigm in computing. Sure, there is a satisfaction to
having built something, but the majority of the joy was in the
building, learning, and problem solving.


For a long time I've been a journey programmer. I love computers and
anything low-level and detailed about anything computational has
always fascinated me. I've developed various projects for no other
reason than to teach me something new, but I feel that's changed
recently.

I think this is likely a mixture of things, not all entirely related
to LLMs. It may be partly due to me feeling more inclined to spend my
time building something useful to others, instead of solely for my
own enjoyment. I do believe that my use of AI-assisted tools over the
years has led me to be more inclined to use them, even in situations
where I actually want to program and solve a problem, but have almost
become too lazy to even enjoy that.

I'm not sure I have a complete answer to my own issue. But modelling
it in this way has helped make it more clear that perhaps I need to
have less reliance on these tools and to work on projects with more
personal meaning. This post is partly a short rant, and partly an
insight in how LLMs are fundamentally changing how I view
programming, I'm sure others have felt this way.


I hope I can soon return to loving the journey of programming,
instead of off-loading the fun stuff to an LLM and being left with a
hollow destination.