Side Projects and AI

Source: Dev.to

Reminiscing about side projects while browsing my GitHub repositories (a.k.a. graveyard for side projects) reminds me how they used to motivate me to be creative. The joy of buying a domain—even before building anything—and securing the name on every service, even before writing a single line of code, shaped me and made me a better developer.

Today, with the onset of AI and one‑shotting an app being so in fashion, I feel it both takes away the joy of building and saves a lot of time, helping us grasp topics more easily and quickly. I wanted to look at building side projects with and without AI.

Side Projects and Me

Building—continuously building—helped me become a better developer, not only by learning new skills but also by practicing already‑learned ones. The whole concept of Build X with … was such a cool thing.

Side projects were something I looked forward to every weekend after my day job. The process of building teaches you a lot:

• Facing real production‑level bugs
• Working on issues you’ll encounter in daily coding
• Creating a habit of coding

Honestly, coding for fun is the best way to code, even if I also love getting paid for it. 😉

Side Projects and AI

I was initially apprehensive about diving into side projects with AI. Learning more about MCPs and agent flows intrigued me and opened up a whole new world. The new opportunities excited me. Using coding‑AI agents for long debugging sessions not only helps me solve problems but also introduces me to different approaches, making difficult projects fun.

However, because something can be done so easily with basic prompting, it sometimes feels like a lot of effort is required just to start a project, which irks me. Once I’m in the coding realm, though, AI does make building enjoyable after the early hiccups.

When learning a new tool or language, I always built random side projects with it. AI has supported me in learning tough concepts or explaining syntax, helping me learn quickly. Yet I sometimes forget what AI taught me; retention is something I’m still working on while learning and building with AI.

What’s Next

I’m neither overly bullish nor negative about AI in coding. At the same time, I see real benefits while building my side projects. I hope to build many more high‑quality projects and avoid what they call SLOP 😁