Dave Gray ☕💻🌮

Developer | Educator | Creator
@yesdavidgray.bsky.social
Youtube:

[Dave Gray ☕💻🌮 @yesdavidgray]

I couldn't be more proud of or happy for my son than I am today. He has overcome so much. I still remember when they lost his heartbeat during childbirth and rushed in specialists to save him. I remember the day he was diagnosed with Autism. I remember his Tae Kwon Do instructor telling him he was disrespectful when he was really just so excited to be there that he couldn't respond. I remember his middle school principal telling me he would fail high school unless I did something... so I did. We moved and found a supportive school. Educators, please never give up on kids! My son kept going and has now graduated high school with a 3.4 GPA. Far from failing, he earned this with hard work and perseverance!!! ❤️ A little progress every day.

[Dave Gray ☕💻🌮 @yesdavidgray]

I'd argue the autofocus on cameras works better, but it's a decent analogy.

[Samay @Samaytwt]

Unpopular opinion: "AI makes everyone a developer" is true the same way "cameras makes everyone a photographer"

[Dave Gray ☕💻🌮 @yesdavidgray]

@BraaiEngineer @GamewithDave The best!

[Dave Gray ☕💻🌮 @yesdavidgray]

@MahimaBh2 Not in the near future. I've been very short on time. I have not even been able to make the videos I want to so far.

[Dave Gray ☕💻🌮 @yesdavidgray]

I see people saying "I miss writing code", and I can't help but wonder what dev job they have? I'm still writing code daily. Do I chat with AI? Of course! And it's still wrong frequently.

What I do find challenging is teaching. How do I get students to understand they need to learn BEFORE they use AI assistance? Even if they are code auditors, they need to be able to understand the code and identify the mistakes AI makes.

[Sergio Pereira @SergioRocks]

Sam Altman is right about one thing:
- Writing software used to be harder.

But there’s an assumption hidden in that statement:
- That because it’s easier now, engineers matter less.

It’s actually the opposite.

AI made it easier to write code. It did not make it easier to build robust software systems.

If anything, it made it easier to build fragile ones.

Today you can generate:
- API integrations
- User interfaces
- Backend data flows
- Entire features

In hours.

But what happens when:
- The same request is processed twice
- Data arrives incomplete or out of order
- A dependency fails halfway through
- Real users behave in unexpected ways

That’s where software breaks.

It's not about the code. It's about how the system is architected.

And that’s where engineering experience shows up.

Understanding failure modes.
Designing for edge cases.
Building systems that don’t collapse under real usage.

AI didn’t remove the need for engineers. It removed the barrier to writing code.

Which means more systems will be built. And more of them will need to be designed properly.

The engineers who can do that are not less important. They are more critical than ever.

[Aaron Levie @levie]

This is counterintuitive for some, which is why there’s a paradox named after it. But if you lower the cost of something that was previously supply constrained, demand for that thing goes up. Software engineering is just one of the easiest examples to contemplate.

The process goes like this: every small business, every IT team, every large enterprise sees that engineering can now drive vastly more output. They then start to consider all the new things they can build or automate. They even test building prototypes themselves.

They only get so far with that approach because they realize there are still 50 other tasks that go into building software and maintaining it. So they start to hire more engineers to do that work. All of this for work they never would have considered automating or having software for if AI didn’t exist.

So yes, automating tasks, in plenty of fields, will lead to demand for experts, not less.

[Dave Gray ☕💻🌮 @yesdavidgray]

@aghil_shoja I agree with that. However, many are having AI write code for them. If they do, they still need to understand the code.

[Dave Gray ☕💻🌮 @yesdavidgray]

👇👇👇

[montano @lucas_montano]

let me say this one more time

as long as AI is writing code for you, you’ll still need to understand code

[Uncle Bob Martin @unclebobmartin]

TDD is very inefficient for AIs. Testing is essential for them but not in the micro steps that the three laws of TDD recommend.

Principles remain the same but techniques must be adjusted to fit the different “mind” of the AI.

Think of the AI as a highly focused idiot savant with a big short term memory and yet horribly absent minded.

[Dave Gray ☕💻🌮 @yesdavidgray]

🤣🤣🤣

[ThePrimeagen @ThePrimeagen]

we vibed so hard we had to delete the repo

[Dave Gray ☕💻🌮 @yesdavidgray]

I don't think these specific actions are required, but I do agree that wisdom is attained through a lifetime (or career) of mistakes.

[Oskar Stark @OskarStark]

Controversial take:

"Senior developer" doesn't mean 10 years of experience.

It means you've mass-deleted production data at least once, mass-emailed customers by accident, and mass-deployed on Friday.

The "senior" is trauma, not tenure. 😅

[Burke Holland @burkeholland]

Opus 4.5 now banging out all my code.

And I'm 100% sure your job is still safe.

The amount of stuff you gotta know to actually ship something extends way beyond brackets and semicolons.

[Chester @chesterzelaya]

ill say it for the 100th time, whoever says software engineering is dead probably isn't working on hard enough problems

[Dave Gray ☕💻🌮 @yesdavidgray]

Tech Bro slaps GitHub hood and says "You have no idea how much SLOP you can fit in here in just one week." 😆 Bonus gift: technical debt.

[Debasish (দেবাশিস্) Ghosh 🇮🇳 @debasishg]

“Jeffrey currently operates 22 separate Claude Max subscriptions. His monthly bill for AI access sits around $4,600.”

“In the first week of January alone, he logged 12000 contributions only in January to his repositories.”

I find these extremely scary. Obviously no one understands the software that gets churned out.

https://t.co/khvqVDqNgh

[Dave Gray ☕💻🌮 @yesdavidgray]

You might not be old enough to understand this comparison, but it's accurate. 💯

[Scott Hanselman 🌮 @shanselman]

vibe coding is the geocities of apps

[Dave Gray ☕💻🌮 @yesdavidgray]

https://t.co/CipqunhVmT

[Dave Gray ☕💻🌮 @yesdavidgray]

Worried about AI?

Watch my new video for some practical thoughts about where programmers and Computer Science students fit in and move forward 👇

[Pratham @Prathkum]

The gap between "it works on my machine" and "it works at scale" is exactly why AI won't take your job.

[ThePrimeagen @ThePrimeagen]

Also

[Catalin @catalinmpit]

We're in the 2nd year of "AI replaces software developers in 12 months".

He said the same thing last year.

[Dave Gray ☕💻🌮 @yesdavidgray]

@Herbert4MVP Good post. You always want to play rivals at full strength to prove your team is the best. No excuses. Never wish injury or illness on any player. 💯