2026: the year the era of hand-coding ended
Code will still be written by hand, but I do not think that is how most of us will develop software from now on. In JetBrains’ survey this summer, for example, more than half of developers said that less than a fifth of their code was written entirely without AI help.
DHH, the creator of Ruby on Rails and one of the big names in the developer community, says in the clip below that he is done as a professional programmer. He has written code for 25 years and loved it. Now he describes himself instead as a “professional maker of things”. Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux and Git, is also clear about the usefulness of AI tools, even if he does not go as far as DHH.
What I like about the clip is that DHH also takes the time to enjoy what he has been part of. I recognise that. I have had a lot of joy from programming: from learning, understanding and getting things to work. It has been rewarding to sit absorbed in a problem and eventually figure it out.
I am excited about the possibilities we are getting now, but at the same time I feel the melancholy. Something I have spent a lot of time on and been fond of becomes less important to do myself. Even though I see the benefits, it is a little wistful.
The future is changing, and we have to change with it. I have no ambition to hold on to hand-coding just because that is how I used to work. But I think we should respect that this can also be a big personal transition. For many of us, programming has been a job, a hobby and quite a large part of who we are.
So it must be allowed to miss it a little, even while we take the new tools into use. I am glad I got to experience that time.
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