Strongly recommend against the mindset that “code quality doesn’t matter because only agents read it.”

Use AI to move faster. Ship more. Improve your products. Let it speed up development and raise the bar.

But make sure you understand the code and can stand behind its quality.

If only an agent can read and modify your codebase, you’ve outsourced ownership of your product. Many of us already depend on big platforms. Don’t add another layer of fragility.

Adapt. Just don’t give up control.

@nerius I hope that analogy holds. I hope learning to code by hand remains the on-ramp. I just don’t see that narrative being pushed by the industry, and I don’t think the analogy holds.

A lot of companies are actively trying to minimize or eliminate manually written code in favor of agents. That’s a very different signal.

That’s why the drawing comparison breaks down for me. Drawing tools didn’t replace drawing, they digitized it. Wacom exists to capture skill, not to remove it.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy AI-assisted coding with tools like Codex and Claude, and I think they’ll play a big role going forward.

I just worry about who gets to grow up with this. I started programming at 7 or 8 years old, on whatever machine we had. I’m not sure this new world of coding is as open to eight-year-olds around the world.

What I dislike about AI-assisted coding becoming the norm is that it raises the barrier to entry.

I learned to program on cheap Windows and Linux machines. I didn’t need anything else. Those machines were my playgrounds.

Now getting started means a machine plus a $200/month subscription. Cheaper plans exist, but their limits make experimentation and learning hard.

People say agents make programming more accessible. That’s true if you can afford them. For everyone else, it’s less accessible.