[GPerson]

I’ve done a lot of vibe coding and I just can’t understand these takes. Pure vibe coding is not going to get you to a good result, so the alchemist you describe is still very much essential, and as far as I can see will be for a very long time.

[bitwize]

Not really. You have to pivot to a systems designer role and articulate in detail what you want to build, but the building of it is now effectively automated. Most programmers are not ready for this shift in mindset. Their perceptions of their own competence (hence value to organization, hence self-worth) are tied to writing the code. Hence why AI-assisted coding seems so unfun.

[GPerson]

Rigorously designing and understanding the system does not sound like what you were referring to in the original post.

All of my heroes always said the difficult part is not in the writing of the code, but in the reading/understanding of it.