All of my friends who would die before they use AI 2 years ago now call themselves AI/agentic engineers because the money is there. Many of them don't understand a thing about AI or agents, but CC/Codex/Cursor can cover up for a lot.
Consequently, if Claude Code/"coding agents" is a hot topic (which it is), people who know nothing about any of this will start raising money and writing articles about it, even (especially) if it has nothing to do with code, because these people know nothing about code, so they won't realize what they're saying makes no sense. And it doesn't matter, because money.
Next thing you know your grandma will be "writing code" because that's what the marketing copy says. That's all it takes for the zeitgeist to shift for the term "code". It will soon mean something new to people who had no idea what code was before, and infuriating to people who do know (but aren't trying to sell you something).
I know that's long-winded but hopefully you get where I'm coming from :D.
Here's an example from just yesterday. An acquaintance of mine who has no idea how to code (literally no idea) spent about 3 weeks working hard with AI (I've been told they used a tool called emergent, though I've never heard of it and therefore don't personally vouch for it over alternatives) to build an app to help them manage their business. They created a custom-built system that has immensely streamlined their business (they run a company to help repair tires!) by automating a bunch of tasks, such as:
- Ticket creation
- Ticket reporting
- Push notifications on ticket changes (using a PWA)
- Automated pre-screening of issues from photographs using an LLM for baseline input
- Semi-automated budgeting (they get the first "draft" from the AI and it's been working)
- Deep analytics
I didn't personally see this system, so I'm for sure missing a lot of detail. Who saw it was a friend I trust and who called me to relay how amazed they were with it. They saw that it was clearly working as intended. The acquaintance was thinking of turning this into a business on its own and my friend advised them that they likely won't be able to do so, because this is very custom-built software, really tailored to their use case. But for that use case, it's really helped them.
In total: ~3 weeks + around 800€ spent to build this tool. Zero coding experience.
I don't actually know how much the "gains" are, but I don't doubt they will definitely be worth it. And I'm seeing this trend more and more everywhere I look. People are already starting to use their computer by coding without knowing, it's so obvious this is the direction we're going.
This is all compatible with the idea of software engineering existing as a way of building "software with better engineering principles and quality guarantees", as well as still knowing how to code (though I believe this will be less and less relevant).
My experience using LLMs in contexts where I care about the quality of the code, as well as personal projects where I barely look at the code (i.e. "vibe coding") is also very clearly showing me that the direction for new software is slowly but surely becoming this one where we don't care so much about the actual code, as long as the requirements are clear, there's a plethora of tests, and LLMs are around to work with it efficiently (i.e. if the following holds -- big if: "as the codebase grows, developing a feature with an LLM is still faster than building it by hand") . It is scary in many ways, but agents will definitely become the medium through which we build software, and, my hot-take here (as others have said too) is that, eventually, the actual code will matter very little -- as long as it works, is workable, and meets requirements.
For legacy software, I'm sure it's a different story, but time ticks forward, permanently, all the time. We'll see.
Tell me, does this vibe coded app running this business properly handle monetary addition, such as in invoicing or summarizing or deciding how big a check to write to the tax man? Are you sure? No floating point math hiding intermittent bugs?
- I don't think they need the extra you would offer them. I'm pretty sure they didn't add anything related to accounting. I also have to admit I'm a bit shocked that you would do all of what I described for "a tad more" than 900€, especially taking "a tad" longer than 3 weeks. To me, that's barely anything. But I guess I'll take your word for it.
- For many things, people no longer need the specialized production-ready work, precisely because they have this powerhouse at the fingertips. They "didn't find you" because it would make little sense to do so. It would take longer (which in some sense is higher risk), be more expensive, inherently be more likely to take even longer to really reach the right requirements (getting the knowledge out of their head and into yours would certainly add some overhead) and, in the end, it will likely really not bring in enough superiority for their use case.
- Because people don't need specialized production work, they won't even think of looking for it -- they already have the tools "at home". Why would I go out to buy a an electric screwdriver if I have a manual screwdriver at home? It's good enough. Sure, some people will try to use the manual one even when they shouldn't, but that's life: some people are better than others at figuring this shit out. I'm (slightly) hoping the AIs themselves will help people realize when they're trying to do something they shouldn't.
I truly believe that, for the most part, software engineering is not under threat. That there are many places where software engineering will continue to be essential. We're not developers and never have been. I think coding "manually" will die out, but not the knowledge of code (at least not for quite some time).
At the same time that I believe this, I also really believe that there is a sort of "new DIY" market (or a new "way of interacting with the machine") where ordinary people will just code things without needing to know how to code. Most of these won't be products, but they will be sufficient, for a sufficiently long time, for their needs. If/when they need more, they'll likely need the help of a software engineer, and that's more than fine.
I'm not saying this is the case with you (it doesn't seem like it is), but I see so much pushback from people who seem....either scared or in denial(?) about this (to me) very obvious new emerging way of interacting with a computer. People ask the computer to do things, and the computer builds programs and integrations between programs that....do the thing! When I was a kid, this would have been amazing, and I'm so excited that it exists now. And of course some of these "ordinary" people will also have this be their gateway into proper software engineering.
When I say friends and family, I mean it: they're all slowly starting to build tiny apps without knowing a single line of code. They often don't look good and have idiosyncrasies, but they're great for them. A friend of mine has a personal assistant with voice + telegram bot that edits their calendar and their notion, all deployed with railway (when they showed this to me I was gobsmacked!). They have ZERO coding experience...and yet...they have built this! I wouldn't use it (too finicky for me), but they swear by it and love it. (I audited the code after they asked me to and didn't find any security issues.)
Just like my dad used to grab a bit of scotch-tape to patch things up around the house, or like my grandpa used to build his toys, and furniture, he can now grab an AI and patch things up in his digital life and workplace -- how can people not see that this is happening? And, worse, why are they so very clearly upset about it and wishing that it just doesn't succeed? Is it job safety? The feeling that their favorite part of the job is being profoundly shaken up (coding)? I guess I can sort of understand and sympathize with feeling scared, but....not with the denial of it.
You know how so many people run their businesses off of excel spreadsheets? Often for way longer than they should, no doubt -- but they do. This is sort of the next step after that for some businesses. But, most of all, I really mean that for people's personal needs, interacting with the computer will involve the computer building some code for them to achieve their goals. Yes, MS is fumbling copilot, but one such integrated AI will eventually succeed, and people will open up their "start menu" / "copilot" / "Claude Cowork" / "whatever" and say "I want to create a library for my comic book collection", and over a couple of prompts (perhaps over a couple of days), their computers will just...build it. They will sometimes use existing solutions, but often they'll just build a good-enough thing that will be almost exactly what this person wants. And that's....awesome. So awesome that we're at a point where computers will enable people to do so much more.
> getting the knowledge out of their head and into yours
The devs who'll stand out are the ones debugging everyone else's vibe-coded output ;-)