After 25 Years, Developer Says He No Longer Writes Code — AI Does It All
rseroter · x · 2026-10-29
Developer Jason McCreary, with 25 years of coding experience, says he barely looks at code anymore: AI writes the code, the tests, and reviews the PRs. He aligns himself with DHH's Rails World "pencils down on writing code by hand" remark and traces his year-long transition through stages:
- Stage 1 (late 2025): AI only for tedious snippets, initially outside the codebase, then inside — but he reviewed every line.
- Stage 2 (early 2026): he wrote tests first (happy path plus sad-path boundary cases), then told AI to "make the tests pass" — tests served as guardrails, combined with git status checks.
- Stage 3 (spring 2026): AI began writing code in his style, taking over further.
His takeaway: most programmers haven't reached the final stage, and once you cross over, going back to hand-writing code feels impossible.
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