Coding agents or helpers have improved by leaps and bounds in the past few months. However, when people ask me whether they still need to learn coding, my answer is an unequivocal yes. Coding in the future – or even right now – is going to look very different from coding in the past. But it is still a skill that needs to be learnt. Think of it like photography: almost everyone carries a camera in their pocket today, but that doesn’t automatically make them a skilled photographer.
Everyone can generate a snake game in an instant nowadays. These are the low hanging fruit – much like taking a photo with your phone doesn’t require much skills. But as soon as you move up the rung to something more complex, the ability of an untrained person to do so breaks down rather quickly.
This quote from the article is particularly relevant today:
Without a solid foundation, you can’t distinguish between good AI suggestions and plausible-sounding nonsense. Therefore, a solid understanding of how to write and structure code remains really important to use this technology best.
Source: Coding agents have crossed a chasm // flurries of latent creativity