Everyone figured AI would supercharge developers, right? Make us 10x faster, crank out bug-free code, let us focus on the big ideas. Instead, this viral post from a grizzled coder hits like a gut punch: we’re not engineers anymore. We’re tool operators. And damn, that stings because it’s half-true.
Look, I’ve covered Silicon Valley for two decades. Seen the hype cycles—JavaScript frameworks that promised the world, then NoSQL databases that’d fix everything. Now it’s AI copilots. But strip away the PR gloss, and who’s cashing in? Not the devs grinding prompts. It’s OpenAI, GitHub, the venture-backed tool lords.
Remember GW-BASIC? Yeah, It Actually Worked
Short answer: yes. The post drops screenshots of ancient financial software—built in 1989 by the author’s uncle—still chugging along today. No frameworks. No npm installs. Just raw code powering real businesses: accounting, inventory, the works.
Here’s the killer quote that nails it:
Most developers today would struggle to build software without Google, AI, or Stack Overflow. That’s not an insult — it’s reality.
Brutal. And spot on. I boot up my old machine sometimes, fire up QBasic, whip together a tic-tac-toe game in 20 minutes. Feels… pure. No autocomplete nagging me. Just logic, trial, error. Kids today? They’d rage-quit without a tutorial.
But wait—did those old apps scale? Hell no. Spaghetti code, global vars everywhere. The author admits it: “My code? - spaghetti logic - global variables everywhere - zero documentation.” If I saw that in a pull request now, I’d nuke it.
Are We Better Engineers or Fancier Typists?
And here’s my hot take, one you won’t find in the original: this mirrors the spreadsheet revolution in the ’80s. Accountants went from ledger wizards to Excel monkeys. Did it kill accounting? Nope. It commoditized the basics, elevated the pros who could model complex finance without formulas. Same with coding.
AI handles the boilerplate—CRUD apps, form validation, that CRUD. Fine. But real engineering? Architecting distributed systems, debugging race conditions at 3 a.m., optimizing for edge cases no LLM predicts. That’s where tool operators flop.
The post romanticizes the struggle: no YouTube, no GitHub, just “Code + imagination.” True. But imagination without tools got you desktop apps on CDs. Today, without tools, you’d still be shipping CDs. Tools democratized distribution—App Stores, npm, cloud deploys. That’s progress, not regression.
Still. Cynic that I am, I see the trap. Companies hire juniors cheaper now. “Prompt engineer this.” Boom, MVP in hours. But when the AI hallucinates a security hole? Or the API changes? Crickets.
So, who profits? Not you, grinding LeetCode for FAANG. It’s the platform owners. GitHub Copilot subscriptions. Cursor IDE upsells. They’re turning engineering into a subscription service. Wake up.
Why Does This Matter for Developers Right Now?
Picture this: 2008 financial crisis. Banks’ VB6 “ancient” systems? They didn’t crash. Shiny new web apps did—until patched by vets who knew raw logic.
Today’s equivalent? When AWS outages hit, or LLMs go rogue with bad data. Tool operators panic-scroll Stack Overflow. True engineers? They fall back to first principles.
The post lists gems: Poker games on CDs, university Hangman apps, driving exam trainers used by generations. No marketing. Just utility. “People are using this.” That’s the dream—software that spreads virally because it solves pain.
But modern dev? Analytics dashboards first, ship second. Feedback loops? A/B tests on day one. It’s backwards.
The Bold Prediction No One’s Making
In five years, elite engineers won’t touch AI for core logic. They’ll be the ones forking repos, rewriting from scratch when tools fail. Tool operators? Gig economy fodder, $50/hr on Upwork.
History backs it. Visual Basic powered enterprises for decades—laughed at now, but reliable. Today’s hotness: React Native, Next.js. Give it ten years.
The author rebuilt games in C#, .NET. Evolved. That’s the lesson: tools augment, don’t replace thinking.
But Silicon Valley hates that. VCs want scale via automation. “Engineer less, prompt more.” Until it bites.
Look. Nostalgia’s easy. I get it—built my first app on a Commodore 64. Felt like god. But denying tools’ power? Nah. Question is balance.
Lose the crutch entirely? You’ll ship nothing. Cling too hard? You’re obsolete.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Will AI replace developers entirely?
No. It’ll replace rote coders, elevate thinkers. Like calculators didn’t kill math.
How do I build real engineering skills without tools?
Start small: no-IDE challenges. Build a CLI app from scratch. Debug without Google. Painful. Effective.
Is Stack Overflow making us dumber?
Kinda. Copy-paste devs suck at reasoning. Use it as a map, not GPS.
