Pre-agent nostalgia

• 18 January 2026

Everything seems to move fast these days and apparently nostalgia is no exception.

I'm not an agentic coding evangelist but I'm also a realist—coding agents are really impressive and have changed the way most of us write software. Agents can help you plan, write, and ship code more efficiently and effectively if you use them correctly.

But dammit, I miss the old way.

I miss the ceremony of searching the Internet for solutions. I miss the ceremony of reading the docs. I miss the ceremony of asking question on Stack Overflow (okay, maybe not that part).

I miss the craft I used to put into every line of code.

A reasonable suggestion might be to just ignore the new tech and not use it. But that's hard to do when you know the tech exists and makes your work better. The cat's already out of the bag, so to speak.

I feel what has historically been referred to as a nostalgia for friction. I miss dearly those processes that are being taken over by automation. For me, the friction was the fun. Without it, I'm feeling a bit lost.

• Previous: Features for no one (AI edition)