August 5, 2026
Ctrl+Alt+Delusion
Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage
Coders say AI is ruining the fun because the struggle is the whole point
TLDR: Fogus argues many hobby coding groups reject AI because the real reward is learning the craft, not just getting a finished result. The comments went even harder, with people saying automating a beloved pastime misses the point entirely and risks turning a joy into bland button-pushing.
A fresh blog post from Fogus has kicked open a very spicy debate: why are hobby coding communities so intensely against using AI writing tools? His answer is basically because for these people, the hard part is the fun part. In niche corners like game emulation, operating systems, programming languages, and chess engines, status doesn’t come from shipping something fast. It comes from suffering beautifully, learning deeply, and proving you understand every moving piece. In other words: if a machine did the hard thinking for you, did you even do the hobby at all?
And wow, the comments were not in a conciliatory mood. One of the sharpest lines came from bigfishrunning: “Programming generates programmers, and programs are a side-effect.” That pretty much became the unofficial slogan of the thread. Others framed AI as the ultimate hobby-killer, with QuantumNoodle comparing it to cleaning your house: sure, everyone likes the result, but that doesn’t mean automating the process is fun. happytoexplain twisted the knife further, saying hobbyists simply aren’t eager to automate away their own hobby.
There was also a deeper anxiety bubbling underneath the snark: control. analog31 warned that many tinkerers spent years escaping locked-down, corporate tools and don’t want to slide back into that world. Meanwhile, virgil_disgr4ce arrived with the most wholesome rebellion possible, plugging Slow Code, a meetup for people who just… enjoy programming slowly. In a world obsessed with speed, this comment section basically said: touch our craft and we bite.
Key Points
- •Fogus says a GitHub thread about chess engine development prompted his reflection on hostility toward LLM use in hobby programming communities.
- •The article identifies multiple niche communities—such as OSDev, LangDev, TxtDev, EmuDev, RLDev, the demoscene, and code golfers—as places where anti-LLM sentiment appears.
- •Fogus argues that in these communities, the process of learning and mastering difficult domains is often valued more than producing working software.
- •He writes that early engagement with LLMs was often damaged by shallow domain understanding among some users and by community members who regarded LLM use as cheating.
- •The article concludes that LLMs are most useful as force multipliers for experts, while using them as substitutes for understanding can conflict with the craft-oriented values of hobby programming communities.