Should You Still Learn to Code in the Era of AI Agents? Devs Debate
bendee983 · x · 2026-08-08
As AI coding capabilities rapidly advance, the community is fiercely debating whether learning programming fundamentals is still necessary.
- Pessimistic view: Believes insisting on "understanding code" is pure cope. Models are already better than most junior devs and improving exponentially. Humans learning from scratch can't keep up with AI's growth, so it's better to just build with AI and let time close the knowledge gap.
- Optimistic view: Argues that better AI doesn't exclude learning to code. Recommends starting with "vibe coding" and gradually going deeper into the stack. The closer you get to the metal, the better you will become at managing and utilizing AI coding agents.
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