The Unbearable Lightness of Coding

A developer recounts building a full retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) system with embeddings and a GUI in just 25 hours using AI coding assistants. The process involved a documentation-first approach, where architectural plans were handed off to AI tools like GitHub Copilot for implementation. While this resulted in incredible productivity, a later attempt to debug and containerize the application revealed a significant problem. The developer realized they had outsourced the implementation details to such an extent that they had no mental model of their own code, feeling more like a project manager than a hands-on coder. This experience highlights the trade-off between development speed and implementation intimacy, suggesting a shift in the developer's role from a craftsman to an architect who directs AI.