Post

Man this cut like a knife. Perfectly put into words the dichotomy I've felt with AI coding. Anyone else?

@ronnorthrip.bsky.social

I think the skills we need to lean into are the problem solving skills, for the business, and for the customer. The code is a means to the end of happy customers paying us for useful things.

Chris Arter

@arter.dev

I agree. But, the brutal truth is that the coding skill I've spent decades building is becoming a commodity like never before. I've always enjoyed the craft of good software and I feel like an artisan shoe maker in the age of Nike.

6/1/26, 4:32 pm0 reposts7 likes

Ron Northrip

@ronnorthrip.bsky.social

6 Jan

That's a very clever and sharp analogy - artisan shoe maker in the age of Nike. I wish you were wronger.

Andrew Feeney

@andrewfeeney.au

6 Jan

I understand the sentiment. But I still think we’re miles from being able to drop a reliance on good software engineers who can understand and fix all the code that’s being generated.

Chris Arter

@arter.dev

6 Jan

Agreed we still need to hand hold & review output. But, I feel like I'm seeing the forest for the trees. Maybe I'm just grieving over what feels like a cheapening of the first layer of the skill stack: hands to keyboard coding, something many of us have spent years and years crafting.

Chris Arter

@arter.dev

6 Jan

I was working on a prompt for agent backlog tickets, and I was writing something about prioritizing readability / clarity over clever code so it's easier for future devs to follow. Then I realized I might be the last human to ever read this code. I sat and thought on that for a while.