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“the best programmers are using AI already.” here is what a senior programmer who’s been coding for decades thinks about the future of programming:
249,060 views • 9 months ago •via X (Twitter)
38 Comments

Senior programmer using AI > Beginners playing with AI

it amplifies your skills the more the better

whoever's a non-architect developer yet is ... advised to become an architect one.

if you want to build production ready apps you still need to know how to code

I've been programming for 40 years. Everything he said is 100% correct. small caveat: ... correct for the next couple years, at least..!

Yea... I still don't see what stops opus 5.5 or whatever from being better than us at everything he listed. Sorry, your argument is invalid

Just a chill guy with common sense

High value isn’t replaced. High value absorbs.

yep my take... effective as a tool. worthless as a replacement. Nail guns did not replace construction workers, and there are cases where a hammer is still preferred

He has the right idea. Short of AGI, programming will require human programmers. LLMs, though they can invent new ways of doing things, rely on pre-existing information. Humans surpass this ability by creating. Programming is a creative process, not a technical one. You have to know the technology, similar to how a painter knows their brushes, paints, and canvas, but the art comes from some creative aspect of humans and their experiences. If you want an e-commerce website with a backend and a flashy presentation, A/I is for you. You won’t need a programmer for that anymore. But when you add complexity that hides what needs to get done, you need a human. Macrohard will be a harbinger for what’s to come, for sure. We look forward to what innovations that will bring. Someday, we won’t need programmers. That will be when A/I can think for itself - something similar to, or literally, AGI.

No. There won't be programmers. There may still be architects, and that means that it will only be people with 10, 15 years of experience in the field will be needed. They won't need juniors or interns, then it breaks skill development, then no more mids or seniors, just AI.

My hot take is most of these people you see you should be immediately skeptical of. Why did they stay in the same role/position for such a long period of time? With programmer salaries you can easily retire in a decade too if you want to cruise.

have you heard about passion?

If he was doing it for passion he wouldn't be working for someone else or a big company for that long. He'd be doing his own thing.

@Hesamation His passion is not talk to customers, growing company and hiring people. These are two things. He is specialist in his field.

@Hesamation I didn't say it had to be a business

All he said is true, but now. He's not looking 5 years ahead. If you want to understand: 1. Look 5 years back. 2. Compare. 3. Imagine that 5 years forward the change will be bigger. It always is.

Means: Ai is productivity tool not a replacement for employees. My questions: who is going to review AI programming, test them, approve them, deploy…etc? I think a humane should

Since there was not much enterprise-level source code for ai to chew on, quality senior devs are still needed in the workflow Sadly, many quality developers were laid off years ago for cheaper more deferential options Expect regressions in the enterprise, lots of them

Have a friend who was a lead developer for Netflix when they first started. Last year he thought AI developers were garbage. This year he manages a team of AI agents and coordinates the integration of several of them developing code before it goes to production.

Yes. And, there are things that AI makes so easy. I use it constantly to create regex patterns. I know regex, but it's always tedious. Grok will give several variants for general to specific use cases. It takes a lot of pain out of the job.

The narrative that ai is replacing programmers is wrong. It’s making them better and more is expected. This will not change and least for many years.

Five years ago, we didn't think AI could generate code. Now we're saying AI can't architect large-scale software. Give AI a year. Not five years like the previous hurdle. One year.

A real engineer knows that coding is just a tool for a better future. Anyone who loves the tool more than the product, is focusing in the wrong thing

You can do that today already with AI. We do. APIfy focus build is the base when you build a big app with Claude Code.

Now a days even the seasoned programmers have switched to full AI coding...earlier there was rejection, then insistence on rejection, then came the realization and now the liberty of not moving figures but exploring ideas further more...

Ai won't replace programmers, it's just a productivity tool.. Enhance ai to it's best use cases. He is right & to the point, experience speaks.

Industry rewriting…

totally get that. b2c is definitely a tough game with so many variables. but with the right tools like First100, it can be a bit easier to navigate those crowded markets and actually find customers. sometimes it's all about having the right strategy and support.

when agents rewrite code claude ain’t the only author in the room slop

This is straight up false, programmers are having so much cope because they can’t gate keep things anymore. You can do anything and everything that guy said and it’s only going to get easier

Sr Dev here, I don’t even say that any more. I call myself an AI Orchestrator or and AI support human.

That look though 👀

Nailed it. The ones shipping the most aren't overthinking tools, they're using them to think better. AI raises the floor so high that half your job becomes deciding what to build instead of how.

agreed; it can't save fools butts; but it is helping;

Stop with all this bullshit AI prompts. It's not there. And probably will never be. It's a matter of time until it will get more stupid than it is. I don't need to justify this, you will see.

Exactly 😁

That's been my observation too. I've been using it-- and giving it guidance to make the code ideal-- having real, hands on experience with writing enterprise software, asking right questions, etc. are key.

