alt Hacker NewsIn the beginning of August 2026, I started a hobby project: building a MongoDB-like database. I have 20 years of industry experience and a master's degree in computer science, so I followed a disciplined, spec-driven development model using Claude, Kiro, Qwen Coder, and Cursor.
The first version was built in about two weeks of part time work. Then I started exploring. I learned relational algebra, researched almost every kind of database, reworked the internals, built a small relational algebra layer, a query planner, and an executor, covering everything from the backend storage to the query language. I learned more in those two months than in the previous 20 years.
Did I care what code the agents wrote? No. I read zero lines of generated code. What I cared about was correctness, verified through tests, and the high-level product features. For the first time in my career, I acted as a senior product manager, steering the project along the right roadmap. Without AI, I wouldn't have been able to do that.
When you have superpowers in your hands, you don't need to worry about the laundry. For the first time in my career, I can produce code in C, C++, Java, .NET, or any other language. Sometimes it takes me longer than a senior developer in that language, but does that really matter? Absolutely not. Writing documentation and code by hand in 2026 is like driving a horse and buggy. It doesn't matter how skilled you are with the reins; you'll never compete with a car. My hobby db project isnt opened source yet.
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I'm sorry, I just don't buy the hyperbole. Something with your previous approach was deeply wrong if you condensed 20 years of learning into 2 months.
Okay, you're going to need to go into a lot more detail about exactly how you learned more in 2 months than you did in 20 years having read zero generated code.
Code examples are literally bread and butter when it comes to learning.
How can you learn without looking at code? That's like saying that you can learn to be an architect without looking at drawings...
Here is one my project is opened source. Highway https://github.com/System-D-AB/highway
It is fault tolerant, distributed broker which gurantees durable queues, pub/sub and RPC all into one easy to use programming model. The application is in production and passing millions of messages every day with sub-millisecond performance, you can crash a server and replica set invokes within seconds without losing any messages. The entire project is created in less than a month with part time working, just because of AI. Its in production and already proven.
> Did I care what code the agents wrote? No.
I also don't care the exact cpu instructions my compiler emits. In fact I have no idea what the "stuff" it emits means (beyond the most elementary)... That doesnt stop me from creating very useful software that maybe even billions of people rely on (once you include the users of products that use our software)
Exactly. If you try to understand, really strive to understand what the AI is producing, then a lot of these arguments fall flat.
No one wants your hobby db
> hobby project: building a MongoDB-like database
But why though?
We're in the era of centaur chess.
Those with 20 years of experience are crushing it.
My worry is not about us. The worry is about the kids. I'm tech lead. I don't think the juniors at my company are learning anything from me. I'm not certain they're learning anything about _software_. Idk, I could be wrong. We barely talk because everyone has become so siloed.
"When you have superpowers in your hands, you don't need to worry about the laundry" - love this
vibecoder 9/10 times, claim 10x improvement, project not open source
and 9/10 times project open source, project bad slop
> correctness, verified through tests
lol
"My project isn't open sourced yet" underlines the problem. There has been a massive explosion of software that works, but badly. The average user experience suffers as a result.