What’s next for software development?

Day 125 / 366

I went out for a networking event with other freelance developers today. And as you might imagine, the main topic of conversation was AI. Specifically, how AI is going to replace our jobs.

It was great to get some fresh perspectives on this topic, from actual software developers. From my blog posts, you would know that I am a bit skeptical about AI. I think it is a bit overhyped. And through my personal experience, I have seen that it’s not that great at coding, and nowhere near to replacing me.

But I talked to a lot of developers who had embraced AI, and were using it regularly to do their jobs quicker. They shared stories of how they were able to do certain tasks in 1/10th of the time by using tools like ChatGPT, Github Copilio, and Claude Opus 3.

But even after all of that, the consensus was that AI will not get rid of our jobs. It will make software development easier, and developers who can use AI tools will definitely thrive. Also, easier-to-develop software like websites or apps will be in less demand, and lower-level languages like Rust or Go will go up in demand.

My takeaway from this is that I need to keep an open mind about AI and keep exploring how I can use it in my work. I definitely need to get out of my comfort zone of Python and web development and learn languages likes Rust as well.