The joy is in the craft

If you’re a maker, like I am on the web, you’ll no doubt know the joy and wonder of creating something from scratch. That you can assemble something useful, useless, beautiful or brilliant from a few pixels, phrases or physical objects. To “see the angel in the marble, and carve to set it free” is a feeling unique to those who create.

As enshittification increases, and slop becomes the norm, my feelings towards so-called AI are not ones of fear, but of pity and disappointment. These models claim to be able to create, or to increase our creativity. They can spin up a wonky clone of a song, picture or site in a matter of seconds, which without basic scrutiny might appear initially impressive. Heck, you might even be able to vibe-code an app in a weekend (although best of luck maintaining that), but in doing so, you’re missing the entire point. The joy is not in the product or the end result, but in the craft.

It’s in the prefers-reduced-motion query, or the elegant custom property that removes a bulk of nesting. It’s in knowing that all users will get the best experience for their device & environment, because you put the time in to make it so. It’s in winning the fight for server-side over client-side AB testing, because you know it makes a difference. The joy is in the well-planned & anticlimactic go live, the microinteractions you snuck in, the encapsulated & deletable component, and the extensible grid system you know will be a joy to work with well in the future. It’s in the craft. The meaning is in the making.

No prompt or koolaid-infused-workflow will bring that joy.

Sure, it’s quicker to e-bike a parkrun, and if you’re as unfit as I am, will be a darn-side easier. You’ll finish 10 minutes ahead of the pack. You might even feel the most fleeting sense of unearned achievement. But you won’t feel that same satisfaction as the person who put in the hours, pushed themselves to their limit and crossed the line under their own steam.

That’s what makes me want to create. It’s what makes me want to build & share, to learn & teach. It’s the web that I fell in love with, that captivated me as junior developer, and what keeps me fired up to this day.