Ken Byrd

Principal Consultant @Improving

[Tech with Mak @techNmak]

"Do not learn to code" is the worst career advice of the decade.

People are telling college students to skip Computer Science because AI will just automate it all. Andrew Ng just killed this myth at Stanford with a brilliant analogy.

When he tried to generate images with Midjourney, he typed: "make pretty pictures of robots" and got garbage.
His collaborator, however, understood Art History. He knew the exact vocabulary of lighting, genre, and palette. He spoke the "language of art," and generated masterpieces.

Andrew Ng is seeing the exact same thing happen in software engineering right now.

AI didn't replace the need to understand Computer Science. It made Computer Science the required vocabulary to control the AI.

If you don't understand how computers actually work, you are just typing "make a pretty app" into Cursor and shipping fragile, unscalable logic.

Here is Andrew Ng's exact hiring hierarchy today:

Level 1: 10 years of experience, but codes by hand (He won't hire them).
Level 2: Fresh college grad, but highly fluent in AI-assisted coding (He hires them over the 10-year veteran).
Level 3 (God Tier): Deeply understands CS fundamentals AND uses AI-assisted coding.

When humanity went from punch cards to keyboards, coding got easier, and more people coded. We are at that exact inflection point again.

AI doesn't replace fundamentals. It multiplies them.

[Tech with Mak @techNmak]

"Programmers will automate themselves out of existence."

That's what they said. And programmers laughed so hard they couldn't respond.

Two years into the AI revolution, here's what actually happened:

What the doomers predicted:
1./ AI writes all the code
2./ Developers become obsolete
3./ Only managers and marketers survive
4./ Programming becomes a dead career

What actually happened:
1./ AI writes code that needs debugging by developers
2./ Developers spend more time reviewing AI output than writing from scratch
3./ The skill gap between good and bad developers got WIDER, not narrower
4./ Demand for senior developers who understand what AI can't do went UP

The brutal irony nobody saw coming: AI didn't replace developers. It replaced the developers who thought AI would do their job for them.

Here's the real shift:
- Junior devs who learn to prompt AI? Productive.
- Senior devs who understand system design? Irreplaceable.
- Developers who just copy-paste without understanding? Already obsolete (AI just made it obvious).
- Managers who thought they could skip hiring developers? Drowning in unmaintainable AI-generated code.

We're not laughing because we're safe. We're laughing because the people who predicted our extinction don't understand what we actually do.

AI is a tool. And like every tool before it, it makes good developers better and exposes bad developers faster.

[Ken Byrd @kenbyrd]

I just finished reading my friend Bob Tiede's new book, "The 340 Questions Jesus Asked" and I highly recommend it! You can download your free eBook version at https://t.co/V0Ag6ZrrYE

[SpaceX @SpaceX]

The Road to Making Life Multiplanetary: an update from @elonmusk on SpaceX's plan to reach Mars

[Milan Jovanović @mjovanovictech]

Writing code is very rarely the hard part of software engineering.

[SpaceX @SpaceX]

Mechazilla has caught the Super Heavy booster!

[Daily Stoic @dailystoic]

"Choose not to be harmed‚ and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed‚ and you haven't been." — Marcus Aurelius

[Sid Palas @sidpalas]

I just dropped my COMPLETE Docker course on YouTube! 🚀

~5 hrs long, starting with the basics and progressing to a complete full-stack application deployment! 💻

The best part? It's FREE! Links below 👇

Thank you to @shipyardbuild for sponsoring! 🙏

[Cory House @housecor]

Some teams struggle because there’s too much friction in making improvements.

If a dev has to create a ticket, sell management, size the task, and get it prioritized, they’re likely to just say "not worth it."

Solution: Welcome proactive improvements. Make them easy.

[Doc Norton @DocOnDev]

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”– Aristotle

[Forrest Brazeal @forrestbrazeal]

Listen up, Silicon Valley…

“Hardcore Engineer”

[Chris Staudinger @ChrisStaud]

These 10 free APIs will take your programming projects to the next level:

[Ted Harrison @tedvid]

140 seconds.

[Jeff Craver @Jeff_Craver]

@the_joe_goodman @BearNTex

[Baylor University @Baylor]

The nation's first collegiate homecoming? Right here at Baylor in 1909. 🐻💚💛

A look back at the history of #BaylorHomecoming, in 30 seconds:

[Ken Byrd @kenbyrd]

@RidersBaseball Frisco Roughriders - 2022 Texas League Champions!

[Ken Byrd @kenbyrd]

@davefarley77 “Lean into…”

[Doc Norton @DocOnDev]

Work together.
Create simple things in small steps.
Be meticulous about composition.
Validate before, during, and after.
Know the problem you are solving.
Release ridiculously often.
Automation over documentation.

#agile #leadership

[Apress @Apress]

Got .NET 6? There is no reason not to with the latest @humble! For a limited time, add some great titles to your summer reading list by paying what you want and contributing to two really good causes! https://t.co/t1HxfN5D0A #DotNet6 @codewithseanw @mgroves @kitlovesfsharp