Matthew Yglesias, who’s a political commentator, yesterday tweeted, “Five months in, I think I’ve decided that I don’t want to vibecode — I want professionally managed software companies to use AI coding assistance to make more/better/cheaper software products that they sell to me for money.” And that feels about right to me. I can plumb my house if I watch enough YouTube videos on plumbing. I would rather hire a plumber.

Here’s what I notice about my grief: none of it is about missing the act of writing code. It’s about the world around the code changing. The ecosystem, the economy, the culture. I think that’s a different kind of loss than what Randall and Lawson are describing. Theirs is about the craft itself. Mine is about the context and the reasons why we’re doing any of this.

Most software engineers are mercenaries typing for cash, but think of themselves as artists

Exploring five critical questions shaping software engineering through 2026, with contrasting scenarios for each. These lenses help prepare for the evolving …