After 20 Years of Development

AI Built the Whole Thing

I’ve been developing for over 20 years.

Started in the early web era with PHP, MySQL, jQuery. Since then, every line of code was typed by hand. Late-night debugging sessions, rushing to the server room for outages, tearfully recovering from hard drive failures.

Recently, I completed a website built entirely by AI. I barely typed any code myself. Just described what I wanted, gave revision notes, and reviewed the output.

Would the version of me from 20 years ago believe this?

Mixed Feelings

Honestly, the feelings are complicated.

On one hand: “Technology has come this far.” AI writing code is actually real now.

On the other: a hint of emptiness. Will the coding skills I’ve honed for two decades matter less going forward? Watching AI solve in seconds what used to keep me up all night is bittersweet.

But 20 Years Weren’t Wasted

As I wrote about getting good results from AI, using AI well requires development knowledge.

When I had AI build the website, 20 years of experience helped enormously. I can spot problems in AI-generated code. I can anticipate performance issues before they surface. I can redirect the architecture when it’s heading the wrong way.

A 20-year veteran using AI and a beginner using AI produce fundamentally different results. Experience makes you better at wielding AI.

The Developer’s Role in This Era

The proportion of manually typing code will shrink, but developers won’t become unnecessary.

The role is shifting. From coder to architect. From typist to supervisor. From the person laying bricks to the person drawing blueprints.

When I first felt developer laziness creeping in, I thought “not writing code is the problem.” Now, writing less code seems like natural evolution.

Twenty years of experience now serves as “the ability to judge good code” rather than “the ability to write good code.” That’s not a bad transition at all.