During my first class in college 25 years ago —yes, I'm old-ish—, the professor told a class full of eager students that (not a verbatim quote), "Whatever you learn here will be useless once quantum computing is a reality. That will be soon, and you will be out of a job." Twenty-five years later, we still have jobs.
I get the same vibes from people claiming that development will be over once AI is fully here. In my opinion, this is a misunderstanding of how the tooling will impact development in itself. And unfortunately, the changes are not always for the best.
AI will not make web development outdated, it will make it easier. But there will still be a need for web developers.
Now, this may seem like an "old man yells at cloud" rant, but the question is: Who will those web developers be? I've been in this industry for over two decades, and the development solutions —especially at entry level (sorry)— are at a disappointing low. Again, in my opinion, this is partly due to people over-relying on tooling instead of learning the basics.
I've been in interviews where the candidate struggled to write a for-loop. Sometimes literally, sometimes conceptually, with the general concept of iterating over data. Maybe I'm old school, but that sounds like an essential skill for a developer.
Common questions on social media like "Is learning Web Development still worth it?" or "Why learn development when AI is taking over everything?" miss the bigger picture. The issue is not whether AI is here to stay —it is, with all its pros and cons. The real issue is how we use it and the over-dependency that developers —especially the newer ones— seem to have on it. AI should enhance the developer's skills instead of being a replacement for learning the basics and having a fundamental understanding of development concepts.
AI is an amazing tool. I use it to review code, get suggestions and feedback, and speed up the process. It's a great asset in my tool belt... But it is a tool for development and not the development in itself... Which is what many people (erroneously) seem to think it is.
Ultimately, it is not about AI replacing developers, but about developers adapting and evolving with the tools. The ability to learn, understand, and apply the fundamentals is essential because tools will only take you so far without the proper foundation.
Cover photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash (cropped to fit the size).
This article was inspired by @grech_ca's "Is it too late to become a web developer in X year?". Check the article, I like the conclusions.
Top comments (1)
I like how you emphasize the importance of development fundamentals even with the rise of AI. Do you think there are specific areas of web development where AI might actually lead to a decrease in demand for human developers?