Developers have never been so divided over a technology. But the fault line isn’t where most people think it is. It was already there, long before AI arrived.

In software engineering, there are doers who let their work speak for itself, and talkers who make sure everyone knows what they’ve accomplished. Both strategies work, but in very different environments, and knowing which fits where might matter more than you think.

When a technology is hot, everyone feels compelled to weigh in, and it’s always amusing to look back at the bad takes. Rather than laughing at others, here’s a chronicle of my own wrong predictions about AI, from dismissing ChatGPT to underestimating AI coding tools.

The Industrial Revolution displaced skilled craftsmen with machines. Two centuries later, we scrambled to find those craftsmen to rebuild Notre Dame. The AI revolution is doing the same to knowledge workers, but a thousand times faster.

AI has transformed how we write code, but programming was never just about the output. A reflection on what makes coding an intellectual game, and whether that joy survives when AI does the heavy lifting.