It is the middle of February 2026, and I am tired.
Not physically tired, but mentally exhausted. We are living through a paradox: never has it been easier to build software, yet never has it been harder to actually learn how to build it.
The timeline is non-stop. Just last month, in January 2026, the industry was buzzing about Claude Sonnet 4.5. We were just beginning to understand its nuances, figuring out how to prompt it for better architecture. Then, before we could even master it, February arrived. Now we have Claude Opus 4.6 (fast), which is in preview, and GPT Codex 5.3. Both models are remarkable and undeniably powerful, but they make the previous tools feel obsolete before the digital ink has even dried.
The cost of staying relevant is going up, both in terms of subscription fees and mental bandwidth. Whether it is coding, technical writing, or generating content like YouTube thumbnails, Featured images for articles, the bar moves daily. There is a visible anxiety in the air: if you aren't using the model that dropped this morning, you are already falling behind.
The day of a developer
The daily routine of a developer has shifted fundamentally. We aren't writing code anymore; we are directing it.
I see it everywhere: a developer writes a prompt, walks away to make a coffee, and by the time they return to their desk, the task is done. The code is generated with minimal errors, formatted perfectly, and ready to deploy. We are creating new things at a breakneck pace, but we are bypassing the loop.
We are skipping the "Wall of Error."
In the good old days, and by old days, I mean just a few years ago, that wall was where the actual engineering happened. Hitting a bug, struggling through the logic, failing, and trying again, searching on Stack Overflow, reading documentation again and again, and reading articles to know more, is what built our muscle memory. It’s what made us experienced. It’s what made us better. Now, the answer is just a prompt away. We are getting the solution without the struggle, which feels efficient, but hollow.
The Economic Reality
This efficiency comes with a price, especially for us in regions like Southeast Asia. The software industry here has always battled lower wages, but AI is driving the cost of development down even further. Clients expect faster results for less money because they know the tools exist.
There is no denying the fact that AI writes better code with every passing month. It is faster, cheaper, and doesn't need to sleep. As a business owner, I should be thrilled. But as a developer? I am tormented from inside.
The Developer Inside Me
I want to embrace this future. I know logically that I should adapt, evolve, and use these tools to become a "super-developer." But the coder inside me, the same person who fell in love with the logic, the syntax, and the sheer puzzle of it all, is unsatisfied.
There was a specific kind of joy in writing everything on your own, a pride in knowing every variable and function because you birthed them. That satisfaction is becoming a ghost.
I don't know if we should be afraid or if we should just get over ourselves and evolve. But I do know that while my output has never been higher, my fulfillment has never been more complicated.
I can’t predict where the algorithm takes us next; I can only tell what it feels like right now, from the trenches of 2026. Maybe you see this revolution as freedom, where I see loss, and honestly? I hope you’re right. We are all just trying to debug our place in this new world, and perhaps the truth lies somewhere between your excitement and my hesitation.
Till next time, keep coding (or prompting). Ciao.
