Saw a recent post on 𝕏 by John Carmack talking about “coding” was never the source of a programmer’s value. This was in response to comments from Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, about replacing programming languages with human language prompts to AI agents.
Instead, programmers are problem solvers. It’s not about the code, or the language, but it is the process of delivering a solution to the specified problem with the tools available. Sometimes those tools are pencil and paper.
Back in college I had a fascination with image file formats and data compression. I remember spending many a history lecture compressing test strings with my latest data compression algorithm invention. Sometimes it isn’t even real problems programmers enjoy solving, but oftentimes ones of their own making.
Rather than AI killing “coding”, it just gives us another tool for problem solving.