I remember when PHP 4 was a thing. jQuery was new and shiny. Sites were built with tables, not divs. Dreamweaver felt like a life hack. Designs were sliced in Photoshop. Databases lived in phpMyAdmin.
It probably didn’t feel like it at the time, but looking back, those were simpler days. The entire concept of the development cycle could fit in my head. There was complexity in building web applications, but it was all manageable. If you had an idea, you could probably build it.
As a solo developer, you could manage everything. From idea to execution. Or at least, it felt that way.
I’m probably romanticizing the past, but you get the idea.
Complexity outgrew my ability to follow#
Today, it’s hard to do web development right.
On the frontend, you have build pipelines, bundlers, CSS frameworks with their own toolchains, progressive web apps, Core Web Vitals, SEO, layout shifts, srcset/responsive images… I remember when the biggest challenge was IE6 compatibility.
On the backend, there are design patterns, unit tests, code coverage, APIs, performance concerns, dependency management, infrastructure, monitoring, log tracing, observability…
Each area of expertise has grown up - probably for the better - but it also demands deeper domain knowledge. I chose to specialize in backend and server infrastructure. I had to step back from frontend work because I couldn’t keep up with its tooling while developing my backend skills.
As a solo developer, it’s now a lot harder to manage everything.
Leveling the playing field#
AI has entered the chat.
They’re far from perfect, but claude and codex gave me the leverage I desperately needed. They’ve brought me back to levels of productivity I haven’t felt in years. I feel like I can manage the entire stack again - with confidence.
I can go from idea to execution in days.
Suddenly, the complexity of each domain matters a lot less.
Pattern recognition#
Oh no, you’re vibe coding - bet it’s all slop and code noise!
Over the past two decades, I’ve worked with a lot of talented people: backend developers, frontend developers, marketers, leaders, and more. I can lean on those experiences, fall back on how they did things, and implement their methods with AI.
I can reliably reproduce their coding standards, tone of voice, tactics, and processes. Starting a new project once felt insurmountable. Now, it feels realistic again.
When AI generates code, I know when it’s good and when it’s not. I’ve seen the good and the bad, and I can iterate from there. Even with refinement and back-and-forth prompting, I’m easily 10x more productive with AI than without it.
The goal hasn’t changed: build quality software that meets modern standards. The goalpost is still far out. But now I have a rocket-powered soccer ball - and I can finally reach it again.
Room for creativity#
There’s mental space for creativity in building software again.
My head isn’t constantly full of build pipelines, testability concerns, code patterns, unfixed bugs… I’m confident I can cover that with help from AI. It still needs to be done, but it’s done so much faster - and it no longer feels overwhelming.
That leaves room to experiment with UI and UX, to try ideas and throw them away. To add small quality-of-life improvements I couldn’t justify before, because there was always something more urgent.
It’s also not the typing of code that I really enjoy, nor is it the syntax or structure or boilerplate that’s required to build anything. It’s the fact you get to build something out of nothing, writing code was just how you got there. And with today’s tooling, that saves a ton of time.
AI really has made web development fun again.