So long as you can prompt your AI to successfully debug your way out of problems - you don't need to understand code.

I appreciate this will be a deeply controversial statement here. As someone who's been coding for 25+ years and has some part of my identity in my ability to code this hurts and wounds me, but it is sadly true. The skills I've built and honed have little value in this new market. This must be how musicians felt when radio, records etc came about. My craft has been commoditized and it turns out nobody cared about the craft. They are happy listening to canned music in restaurants. Musicians are now like zoo animals where people pay an entry fee to see them for the novelty value. I exaggerate to illustrate the shift but part of me fears this might be more analogous than I dare to understand.

Code is about providing value to a business not in the lines of code themselves. Code is a means to an end.

If you want to understand coding for your own intellectual and hobbyist pursuit then please do. Generations of autistic-leaning people have found satisfaction doing so - but don't do it thinking it will remain a rewarding career.

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input_sh 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

So long as you can navigate someone from the passenger seat, you don't need to know how to drive a car. I've been an experienced driver myself, but in the age of self-driving cars it's just not a useful skillset to have. A car is just a means to an end, why learn how to drive it when you can simply hop into a taxi?

The answer: because people find joy in doing it themselves.

	▲	jraph 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> why learn how to drive it when you can simply hop into a taxi? Because hopping into a taxi is kinda expensive, most can't do that daily. > in the age of self-driving cars it's just not a useful skillset to have Self-driving cars are not there yet, especially as there are somewhat unpredictable human beings still driving around and imperfect infra. Laws are also not really there yet around the world too. Self-driving is also kinda a black box that you don't really have control on, especially as long as these cars are connected to the mother company. In a way, most of that is mostly true for programming and Gen AI as well (and Gen AI might become expensive as well), so your analogy might be quite apt in the end xD Otherwise, > because people find joy in doing it themselves Many people seem to enjoy it indeed. I'd be perfectly happy delegating driving. I can like driving, but I don't enjoy the responsibility and the risk that I mess something up. I do enjoy programming myself though :-)

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loveparade 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Okay, but most of the time you can't prompt your AI to successfully debug you out of problems if you don't understand code. Or when you do the AI will solve the problem in a way that creates a dozen more cascading problems an hour later. I've also been coding for 20 years now and I feel like my coding skills are just as important now as they were 10 years ago. Without them I'd never be able to use AI effectively.

The only exception really are greenfield apps like "create a toy todo app demo" or "scaffold this react project" but that's like 0.001% of real world engineering work.

	▲	everfrustrated 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		True, but it very much depends on the domain and complexity of stack you're working in. For a lot of crud type dev work the problems are common to many and AI will have no trouble.