While coq is an automated theorem prover, I've had a tremendous amount of fun working my way through Software Foundations[1]. The vast majority of the proofs are assembled "by hand", but with coq verifying steps. For someone like me who has a "late in life" fascination with mathematics, doing proofs using coq has been fantastic.
There's an important distinction (spectrum?) between automated theorem provers and proof assistants. Coq is a proof assistant, which means that any automation is there to try to help the programmer by clearing away the tedious parts and leaving only the creative, fun parts. At the end of the day, it's still a human writing a proof. Afterward, Coq ultimately verifies the proof's integrity, which is an easy mechanical operation.
