A lot of people are angry about AI coding tools. I was resistant too. But I had to ask myself an uncomfortable question: is this caution, or is this ego? Because if you spent ten years mastering something, letting go isn't rational, it's personal. #StillBurning
It’s caution. And justifiable anger at yet more ways that corporations violate copyright/IP and rip-off the hard work of many humans and then sell it for profit without even giving credit. Everything that AI has been trained on has already been produced by humans. Why are we running vastly inefficient pseudo-simulations of human brains rather than hiring the actual humans that came up with the solutions in the first place? (That’s largely a rhetorical question, we all know the answers).
Recognizing the ego’s role in resistance is a tough but crucial step. I’ve seen teams delay adopting new tools not because they doubt the tech, but because it challenges their identity as experts. The real breakthrough comes when you shift focus from what you lose to what you gain.
Its been LONG promised that IDE would reach a level of ease that anyone could write software. But the drag and drop IDEs and the UML code gen tools fell short. I have just started using Replit in full force and I have to say it's very good and I have been purposely giving it minimal details and it's connecting the gaps very nicely. I am enjoying this next evolution in how we build applications and its long overdue.
been there honestly, stopped writing code around 2008 and let my team handle it, then came back via Cursor last year and the ego hit was real. the uncomfortable part wasn't AI being good, it was realizing the craft i thought defined me had quietly become optional.
Same, it took me a while to accept too. The era of human-crafted software - is already gone way sooner than I expected and our identity is taking a hit. But just because we spent so long honing the craft, pouring over the syntax, and building our identity around it, doesn't mean it's untouchable. It clearly was not! But now we reframe our value to what's now more impactful and fun to be honest: Knowing users, and building the right things! Let the mourning of our old-professional identity be short, we've new horizons to go at.
Having a long coding career means having had to give up a lot of hard won knowledge in order to pick up new things. AI seems the same, only it's asking for more and moving faster. It still pays to dig in and look closely though. This is a new skill where being sloppy in the wrong way is going to come with a big price tag.
I’m holding off on diving in fully until guys like you settle enough of the dust. Keep up the good work! I’m most comfortable at what my buddy calls “the adopted bleeding edge”. Not enough solidification around “adopted” for me yet.
First Episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/still-burning/id1887873329?i=1000757285636