I’m deep into shaders and three.js, and honestly, there’s no “end” to this road. The possibilities feel limitless—you can literally build full games like the ones we play on PC. This stuff is hard; it’s not typical web development. And somehow I love it. It’s just math and numbers. The weird part? I’m not even “good” at math, but my brain clicks with low-level coding. Shaders run on the GPU—there’s nothing more low level than that. 
This is a small experiment with fire particles and an attractor that pulls them in. Drag the green dot and play with it:
I spoke with a veteran who has ~20 years in this space, and even he says he still feels like a beginner after two decades of doing shaders and 3D in the browser.
AI helps, for sure—but if I lean on it too much, I get lost and it takes the wheel. I’m definitely not the only one who’s felt that. Doing this work shows how complex the fundamentals are. For example, when you see a model on screen, you’re moving through multiple spaces, each with its own transformation matrices—basically its own little realm. That’s the kind of thing you have to understand, not just prompt.
So I’m wondering about the future of “code with AI.” This is where the web is headed, but no matter how good your prompts are, there are concepts—like this attractor—that you need to truly grasp. If a beginner doesn’t understand 99% of what’s happening under the hood, what will future web experiences look like? Something doesn’t quite add up.
