Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance • Hacker News Board

Re: Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance

#51

Post by johsole » Mon, Aug 24, 2026, 4:18 PM UTC

gdulli wrote: post #35

toenail wrote: post #6

And math skills are going to collapse from calculator reliance.

That's a very good point. People don't pull out their calculator in the grocery store to do analysis of unit costs or whatever, it's too much of a hassle for that small kind of analysis. But calculators have robbed us of the need to be good at doing that math in our heads. So the math doesn't get done.

Many grocery stores will already give you a per oz or per unit price so you can compare pricing for different brands that have different sizes. It's a very handy feature.

Re: Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance

#52

Post by musebox35 » Mon, Aug 24, 2026, 4:18 PM UTC

toenail wrote: post #6

And math skills are going to collapse from calculator reliance.

A more apt analogy is the diminishing understanding of assembly language and machine instruction sets. I love programming and something got lost in both transitions, first to high level languages and now to coding agents. I am quite sure some contexts will require programming by hand for a long while as there are still people who are writing amd64/avx512/sass by hand. I hope in time we will find new ways to enjoy solving problems with this new programming modality. By now, I am pretty sure it is here to stay and evolve from its current crude form.

Re: Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance

#53

Post by Zigurd » Mon, Aug 24, 2026, 4:18 PM UTC

GiorgioG wrote: post #2

I learned BASIC, Pascal and x86 Assembly language by the age of 14-15. None of which I remember (nor care to). The strict instructions (aka language) we gave the compiler was not the point. Those experiences taught me how to think logically, and over time develop a taste/structure for how software should be built, as well as foot guns to avoid. I don't know how you teach that without coding, but the "coding expertise…

In contrast with Pascal, I could see in my mind the PDP-11 instructions behind my C code. By the time I started running code on x86, there were debuggers that could step through source code, and I didn't really want to think like an i386.

Re: Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance

#54

Post by LandoCalrissian » Mon, Aug 24, 2026, 4:19 PM UTC

The snake eating it's own tail for llm software development has really been met with a shoulder shrug whenever it gets brought up. At best you might have a small cohort of developers that don't cook their brains with AI and their reward for that appears to be having to review terrible AI code written by people who have cooked their brains.

Completely unsustainable.

Re: Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance

#55

Post by causal » Mon, Aug 24, 2026, 4:19 PM UTC

So far I think I have learned far more from LLMs than I've lost to them. I forget some syntax, definitely. But I now reach for a much wider range of tools that I have become familiar with because of LLMs.

So, partly agree, partly disagree.

Re: Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance

#56

Post by bigmattystyles » Mon, Aug 24, 2026, 4:19 PM UTC

chojeen wrote: post #46

I'm looking forward to having the same experience as COBOL engineers did after retirement: companies backing up the brinks truck to anyone with the skills to keep the lights on.

It's like I said in another article, I've spent my life in C# and JavaScript. I'm a low-level programmer now, did even have to learn C or assembly.

Re: Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance

#57

Post by VCFundedGenYer » Mon, Aug 24, 2026, 4:19 PM UTC

toenail wrote: post #6

And math skills are going to collapse from calculator reliance.

No.

With a calculator you still need to understand the fundamentals of mathematics. You also need to understand how to operate a calculator and know its functions.

Even when removing numbers and manual calculation, being a function or formula oriented mathematician still requires you to know the theory and functionality.

With an LLM, you don't even need to know anything other than asking the robot to perform. You don't understand the output, nor can an unskilled person explain it.

Re: Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance

#58

Post by sampullman » Mon, Aug 24, 2026, 4:20 PM UTC

larsfaye wrote: post #40

waffletower wrote: post #32

Coding expertise is going to collapse from compiler reliance (1985 Turbo Pascal detractors)

Do you think LLMs and compilers have a lot of overlap?

In an abstract sense, yes. Compilers let programmers work at a higher level of abstraction. LLMs bring it to an even higher level, though the abstraction is much leakier.

For the time being, a good understanding of programming and domain knowledge gets you much farther than without it. There might not be room for as many (professional) programmers as before, though.

Re: Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance

#59

Post by sleepgummies » Mon, Aug 24, 2026, 4:21 PM UTC

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Re: Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance

#60

Post by xdavidliu » Mon, Aug 24, 2026, 4:22 PM UTC

chojeen wrote: post #46

I'm looking forward to having the same experience as COBOL engineers did after retirement: companies backing up the brinks truck to anyone with the skills to keep the lights on.

> backing up the brinks truck

now that's a phrase I have only heard in one other context: as an alleged quote from former Boston Celtics player Isaiah Thomas (who was really about 5'7 despite his official listed 5'9; yes, professional basketball player in NBA). This was around 2017 when he had just come off a career year and was soon due for a contract extension in the low 9 figures. He got injured and bounced around for a few years before eventually leaving the league, and never got that payday.