Why Coding Is Even More Relevant For You In The AI Era: A Story
I have been in the software engineering space for quite some time now and this letter is for anyone who thinks there is no point even trying.
Let’s set the stage. Imagine a time, not too long ago, when telephones were attached to walls (wild, right?) and the idea of a “robot” meant a squeaky tin can that said “beep boop” on a Saturday morning cartoon. Now? We ask tiny black cylinders in our living rooms to tell us the weather, order cat food, and occasionally regale us with embarrassing dad jokes. And while our robotic overlords have made life more convenient, one worry keeps popping up: “If AI can do everything, is there any point in learning to code anymore?”
In short: Yes. Yes, there is.
Grab your coffee mug and let me walk you through why.
The Myth of the Coding Doomsday
Many folks imagine a future where AI has taken all the coding jobs (all the existing jobs even), leaving the rest of us to become artisanal pastry chefs and mushroom farmers. (Not that there’s anything wrong with dough or fungi, of course. It does sound peaceful.) But hold your sourdough starter—there’s more to the story than meets the eye.
Remember the tabloid headlines: “AI builds an app in five minutes, while dev in pajamas binge-watches cat videos”? Turns out, that rumor is more clickbait than real fate.
Far from replacing developers, AI is actually helping them become more productive. One might say AI is kind of like that super-helpful friend in a group project who has read all the references and just wants to share them—rather than the friend who copy/pastes everything from Wikipedia at 3:00 AM.
Data? We Got Data
If you like your numbers crunchy, here’s some interesting tidbits from the latest GitHub Octoverse 2024 report:
A Whopping 518 Million Total Projects on GitHub
That’s more repositories than you could star in a lifetime. This shows we humans aren’t giving up on writing code anytime soon. In fact, we created 108 million new repositories in 2024 alone! AI might suggest code snippets, but it’s people who keep starting the projects in the first place.5.6 Billion Contributions to All Projects
If code were a flavor, and it were named by Spotify, it would be something like “Internet-breaking mocha swirl” based on how many commits, pull requests, issues, and discussions are happening around the globe. So, someone is obviously doing a whole lot of typing (and not just an AI).Over 137,000 Public Generative AI Projects
This is a 98% year-over-year growth in AI-related repos—meaning more devs are openly experimenting with AI, from mini chatbots to next-level language models. So, no, the future isn’t AI instead of us; it’s AI with us.Python Overtakes JavaScript
After a decade-long run, JavaScript steps down as the top-used language on GitHub—Python is now the most popular. Why? The data suggests machine learning, data science, and good ol’ AI have catapulted Python’s popularity. Meanwhile, JavaScript remains huge (and is still #1 in code pushes). But the fact that Python soared to #1 is a testament to how important coding is in the AI era.Massive Global Growth
New devs are joining from India, Brazil, Nigeria, Indonesia—you name it. India alone is predicted to have more developers on GitHub than the U.S. by 2028. That’s not just a statistic; that’s an international coding party you don’t want to miss.AI Tools Driving Dev Productivity
Over a million open source maintainers, students, and teachers now use GitHub Copilot at no cost, with usage doubling in the last year. The moral of the story? AI is becoming the developer’s best friend—not their replacement.
A Little Storytime
Picture this: It’s the late 1990s. People are stocking up on canned goods and bottled water because of Y2K—yes, that apocalyptic moment when computers were supposedly going to implode as soon as the clock struck midnight on January 1, 2000. Companies hired entire armies of Y2K engineers to fix the dreaded date bug, en masse. Everyone braced for planes to fall from the sky, nuclear power plants to malfunction, and coffee machines to start demanding world domination (okay, maybe not the last one, but it felt that dramatic).
And then… the new millennium arrived, and the world didn’t collapse. All those Y2K fixes wound up solidifying the need for more robust software practices and even more developers.
Shortly after, we started worrying that the fancy new WYSIWYG website builders would erase the need for real web developers. Yet, instead of ending the field, they sparked an entire industry around e-commerce, digital marketing, and web design. Fast-forward a bit and suddenly smartphones were everywhere, ushering in app stores and a “mobile-first” revolution. We heard the same doomsday chorus: “Apps will kill the web!” But in reality, they created countless new jobs—from mobile devs to UX designers to entire companies built around the idea of push notifications.
Then cloud computing came along and we assumed it would displace on-premises IT teams. Instead, it generated a surge in demand for DevOps engineers, cloud architects, and site reliability experts. Each big technological leap—whether it’s the personal computer, the smartphone, the cloud, or the next flavor-of-the-month—kicks up the same old fears: “This will replace us all!” But history consistently shows us how these leaps simply carve out new opportunities, new roles, and a broader stage on which to innovate.
Now, AI and machine learning are in the spotlight. Yes, they can automate repetitive tasks and produce code snippets at lightning speed, but they also open the door to entire new classes of products, services, and even industries. Instead of coding each function by hand, we have room to focus on the grand ideas: user experience, ethical design, bigger-picture strategy, and making sure our code doesn’t accidentally send 10,000 rubber ducks to someone’s doorstep instead of one pair of shoes. So if anyone tells you that AI is the final blow to your coding aspirations, remember how many times before technology has transformed—not terminated—our roles, expanding the horizons for what humans can do.
Nevertheless, if we sleep this one out, we might actually be replaced. Not by AI, but by someone using AI. Just saying.
Why You Should Pick Up Coding Now
Future-Proof Skill
We live in a tech-driven world, and coding is the backbone. Even if new languages pop up faster than K-pop fandoms, the principles remain. Once you’ve learned problem-solving in code, picking up new languages is a cinch.
Empowering Curiosity
Ever felt like a wizard? Coding is basically the modern-day version of magic spells. You write some instructions, and voilà—things happen! AI or not, having the power to tell computers what to do is always relevant.
Creativity Outlet
Who said coding is all math and zero fun? Designing user experiences, building interactive websites, or creating that weird-but-cool phone app that tracks your dog’s favorite squeaky toy squeaks… it’s all in your hands. AI can help speed up the process, but the ideas still come from the glorious labyrinth of your human imagination.
Final Thoughts (and a Virtual High-Five)
Let’s circle back to the question: “Is there a point to coding when AI is so powerful?”
I’ve been in software engineering for a while, and here’s my unfiltered advice: Absolutely, yes!
The world still needs curious, creative, and slightly sarcastic people (like you) to push technology forward. AI will handle the grunt work, but it’s people who set the vision. Coding is even more relevant now precisely because of these tools. With AI as your sidekick, you can do more in less time, focusing on bigger, bolder, more impactful ideas.
So, if you’ve been hovering on the edge, deciding whether to dive into a new coding project or sign up for that online class—consider this your sign. The programming languages might evolve. The frameworks might change so fast your developer coffee mug collection can’t keep up. But your problem-solving ability? Your creative spark? That’s forever. And AI? It’s just here to help you shine even brighter.
Now go forth, code fearlessly, and may your bugs always be easily traceable!
(P.S. If a thousand lines of auto-generated code start to whisper to you at midnight, maybe call a friend or talk to your rubber duck—just standard debugging protocols, you know.)