Totally this. People who don't see this seem to think we're in some sort of "bubble" or that we don't "ship proper code" or whatever else they believe in, but this change is happening. Maybe it'll be slower than I feel, but it will definitely happen. Of course I'm in a personal bubble, but I've got very clear signs that this trend is also happening outside of it.

Here's an example from just yesterday. An acquaintance of mine who has no idea how to code (literally no idea) spent about 3 weeks working hard with AI (I've been told they used a tool called emergent, though I've never heard of it and therefore don't personally vouch for it over alternatives) to build an app to help them manage their business. They created a custom-built system that has immensely streamlined their business (they run a company to help repair tires!) by automating a bunch of tasks, such as:

- Ticket creation

- Ticket reporting

- Push notifications on ticket changes (using a PWA)

- Automated pre-screening of issues from photographs using an LLM for baseline input

- Semi-automated budgeting (they get the first "draft" from the AI and it's been working)

- Deep analytics

I didn't personally see this system, so I'm for sure missing a lot of detail. Who saw it was a friend I trust and who called me to relay how amazed they were with it. They saw that it was clearly working as intended. The acquaintance was thinking of turning this into a business on its own and my friend advised them that they likely won't be able to do so, because this is very custom-built software, really tailored to their use case. But for that use case, it's really helped them.

In total: ~3 weeks + around 800€ spent to build this tool. Zero coding experience.

I don't actually know how much the "gains" are, but I don't doubt they will definitely be worth it. And I'm seeing this trend more and more everywhere I look. People are already starting to use their computer by coding without knowing, it's so obvious this is the direction we're going.

This is all compatible with the idea of software engineering existing as a way of building "software with better engineering principles and quality guarantees", as well as still knowing how to code (though I believe this will be less and less relevant).

My experience using LLMs in contexts where I care about the quality of the code, as well as personal projects where I barely look at the code (i.e. "vibe coding") is also very clearly showing me that the direction for new software is slowly but surely becoming this one where we don't care so much about the actual code, as long as the requirements are clear, there's a plethora of tests, and LLMs are around to work with it efficiently (i.e. if the following holds -- big if: "as the codebase grows, developing a feature with an LLM is still faster than building it by hand") . It is scary in many ways, but agents will definitely become the medium through which we build software, and, my hot-take here (as others have said too) is that, eventually, the actual code will matter very little -- as long as it works, is workable, and meets requirements.

For legacy software, I'm sure it's a different story, but time ticks forward, permanently, all the time. We'll see.