Why code when there is AI? (I will answer my own novice question in my own novice voice, please add actual wisdom...)

That's like asking "why cook when McDonald's is down the street?"

The short answer is that sometimes you don't want McDonald's.

AI isn't currently capable of building complex websites. Airbnb is working on something that takes wireframe sketches and turns it into fully designed components according to their in house design language, which is pretty interesting. But that's mostly a labor intensive, straightforward process that they're automating. It's not coding a unique, complex website from scratch. There's also a thing people call the "AI Winter", where expectations don't get met, investment drops off, and the ecosystem loses momentum, kind of a boom and bust cycle. It's happened before, and some people think it's happening again.

Interesting article on AI Winter. I am having a personal "AI Winter" that has me taking up coding. I find that using software to make websites while avoiding coding have there own learning curve-- you end up spending as much time learning there interface as you would learning to code, but then you have added of these layers of complexity....its like the board game mouse trap

Another thought: I have a hobby interest in creative writing. <sarcasm> I am that one person who wants to write the next "Great American Novel." </sarcasm> That being said, there is a great analogy that ties into the Mcdonald's observation. You can spend gobs of money on beginning writer's conferences, and softwares to help you write the next great American Novel. The people who write the great novels write really really well. Notice I didn't say they have great plots, they have phenomenal stories, the "javascript" of the novel. They often break the rules and make it work.

Consider some Koontz quotes that are the CSS of writing. I have the same faults in my writing on the programming side as I do on the web wide--- I am now psyched to learn CSS thanks guys...attitude adjusted

Sheep were docile, yes, but vigilant. Unlike many people, sheep were always aware that predators existed and were alert for the scent and the schemes of wolves. Contemporary Americans were so prosperous, so happily distracted by such a richness of vivid entertainments, they were reluctant to have their fun diminished by acknowledging that anything existed with fangs and fierce appetites. If now and then they recognized a wolf, they threw a bone to it and convinced themselves it was a dog. Krait's musings Chapter 7, pp. 52-53 In a world that daily disconnects further from truth, more and more people accept the virtual in place of the real, and all things virtual are also malleable. Krait's musings Chapter 21, p. 147 Experts must read the patterns and judge their usefulness as evidence. Under any of numerous pressures, an expert may wish to misread a pattern or even to alter it. Americans had a touching trust in "experts"