Dario is wrong about software engineering
Summary
Dario Amodei's claim that 'coding is going away' fundamentally misunderstands software engineering. Coding is just one component of a multi-layered discipline that builds domain expertise, team connections, and deep understanding—none of which AI can automate away.
Key Takeaways
- Coding serves as a confidence and understanding-building mechanism beyond just producing code. The act of programming cements domain knowledge and deepens your grasp of the problem space you're solving.
- Software engineering encompasses far more than the coding activity itself. Critical components include domain understanding, team collaboration, and knowledge retention that happen simultaneously while coding.
- Delegating all coding to machines ignores the learning and relationship-building benefits embedded in the development process. This perspective conflates code output with the full scope of engineering work.
- Domain expertise accumulates through the practice of coding itself. More programming experience directly correlates with deeper domain understanding, a benefit that can't be outsourced to AI.
Related topics
Transcript Excerpt
There was this tweet going viral by Dario where he said, I quote, "Coding is going away first and all of software engineering." You had some things to say about it. >> Yeah, my response [music] is that that's a statement by someone who doesn't understand software engineering. Coding is part of what you're doing, but it's only a small part of what you're doing. Even if it takes up [music] a fair amount of time, you're building confidence, you're building connections with other people, you're building your own understanding. All those things are happening while you're coding, and coding's actually a great way to cement understanding. The more you program, the more you understand the domain that you're working in. And [music] so to say, "Well, we're just going to pass all that off to a machin…