David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH)

It took the capacity of

accountants to become software developers because the tools became so accessible to them that they could build a model for how the business was going to do next week that required a programmer prior to Excel.

Now it didn't because they could do it themselves.

Vibe coding enables non-programmers to explore their ideas in a way that I find absolutely wonderful.

But it doesn't make you a programmer.

That's the dream of the prompt engineer.

I think it's a complete pipe dream.

I don't think editors exist that aren't good at writing.

I've written a number of books.

I've had a number of professional editors write.

Not all of them wrote their own great books, but all of them were great writers in some regard.

You cannot give someone pointers if you don't know how to do it.

It's very difficult for an editor to be able to spot what's wrong with a problem if they couldn't make the solution themselves.

Editing, in my opinion, is the reward.

The capacity to be a good editor is the reward you get from being a good doer.

You have to be a doer first.

Now, that's not the same as saying that vibe coding, prompt engineering won't be able to produce fully formed, amazing systems even shortly.

I think that's entirely possible.

But then there's no skill left, which maybe is the greatest payoff at all.

Wasn't that the whole promise of AI anyway, that it was just all natural language, that