The rapid development of AI has many developers concerned - is this the end of coding? But I've often said that coding has been in decline for years.
Indeed, much of the history of software development is about how we can make coding easier or more abstract. Compilation, interpreted languages, open source - these are all ways software developers have found to actually write less code.
Large language models present a new opportunity to manually write less code. That's a good thing.
The skill of typing out code is rapidly becoming a commodity, but there are more valuable ways for an experienced developer to use their knowledge...
- Discover requirements behind a new feature
- Propose architecture that meets the demands of the product
- Think through & test edge cases
- Consider user experience & make usability decisions
- Choose & configure deployment strategies
- Plan data migrations
- Review code & identify opportunities for refactors
- Write documentation for other humans
- Interview candidates
- Coach junior engineers & pair program
- Respond to incidents
- ...
The list goes on! Your job is much more than writing code. It's a good thing that the actual typing of code is in decline, because it frees developers up to do these more valuable tasks.
Your value is in your brain, not your hands.