Rebutting "Code Was Never the Hard Part": Defending Programmers' Value in the AI Era
senko · hn · 2026-08-08
With the rise of AI coding tools, the narrative that "code was never the hard part" has become popular. The author strongly pushes back, calling it an insult to all professional programmers.
The article argues that writing high-quality, maintainable code has always been a highly challenging engineering task. Dismissing the value of code not only ignores the true complexity of software engineering but also creates dangerous misconceptions about the capabilities and limits of AI-assisted programming.
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