There is no world in which I would have spent the days (more likely weeks) necessary to learn enough about audio analysis in both JavaScript and Python and the WebAudio APIs necessary to build this thing, just to help me identify an annoying beep.
Thanks to coding agents, I got to build a wildly ambitious system that still taught me a bunch of interesting things about audio analysis and network web application design, all in about an hour and a half of clock time.
The alternative wasn't learning those things at increased detail, it was not learning anything about them at all.
And I added more tools to my tool belt for the future. I now know that it's possible to measure distances to sounds using cheap devices over a network, and I've got code in a GitHub repository that shows exactly how to do that.
The trick where the server could inject additional JS modules into the clients without needing to refresh the page (and hence lose the microphone permission) was neat, too.
I don't believe you learnt anything to any appreciable depth in 1.5 hours. I guess you learnt what's possible, but not much more. I get it, learning is learning and you got 1.5 hours' worth. Fair enough.
The bit I struggle with, though, is celebrating things being easy. I'm not excited by easy things. I like hard things. It's a bit like reading an account of how easy it was doing the Alpe d'Huez in a car. I'm more excited by people cycling up it because I know how difficult that is, or building the car. But driving it? Meh.
I do wonder if I'm descended from the people who built Stonehenge. I get restless if things are too easy. I need something hard, like erecting huge stones. But damn it's been nice being able to get that kind of satisfaction just sitting at a desk.
It's closer to sitting in a lecture and actively asking questions, then discussing the material with others in the room (but still skipping the homework).