9 hours ago
- AI has compressed the gap between junior and senior programmers, reducing the advantage of years of accumulated knowledge.
- Experience remains valuable for noticing subtle errors, asking better questions, understanding trade-offs, and recognizing hidden maintenance costs.
- The bottleneck in programming is shifting from code production to judgment, such as choosing the right problem to solve and understanding user needs.
- Learning fundamentals like arithmetic or assembly still matters but no longer provides a competitive moat in the market.
- The new moat for experienced programmers lies in taste, domain expertise, critical evaluation of AI output, and owning outcomes after prompts.
- AI accelerates learning for beginners, collapsing the time needed to become productive, without eliminating the need for experienced oversight.