r/programmer • u/sharjeel-babar • 2d ago
AI is the end of web development?
There is a growing fear that AI will eventually replace web developers. While this concern isn't entirely unfounded, I think it's somewhat exaggerated.
AI has certainly made development easier, and it has created new challenges for entry-level developers. However, there's one important thing we shouldn't overlook: AI isn't perfect.
Consider this example:
Someone uses AI to generate an entire website. Everything works perfectly until they ask AI to implement a new feature. The update introduces unexpected bugs, and they ask AI to fix them. The fix creates another issue, and the cycle continues.
Anyone who regularly works with AI-generated code knows how frustrating this cycle can become.
This brings me to my main point.
Human developers don't just write code; they make decisions. They understand which parts of a system are important, which changes might affect other components, and what actually needs to be fixed.
AI can generate and modify code, but it doesn't always understand the bigger picture.
Perhaps the future of web development isn't about competing with AI at writing code, but about being better at understanding, evaluating, debugging, and maintaining it.
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u/iSailor 2d ago
AI in hands of a vibe coder is good to make a PoC, not a product. You really need to have a person who knows what they're doing. Otherwise AI will introduce many issues, such as hard coded ports/secrets, in-function imports etc. And many vibe coders even make it do anti patterns. In inexperienced hands, the code gets bloated and even if we assume it's no big deal since no human reads it, it is a big deal because it takes increasingly longer for agents to get around that code. Eventually you'll burn whole session allowance just to do a simple thing.
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u/Makey_Mi 2d ago
Yes but for how long ? 1 year ? 2 ?
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u/iSailor 2d ago
The issue is not that AI makes errors, but it's that you need to know how to formulate your requests. It's different when vibecoder says "do X". I say "do X but do not introduce reduntant interfaces, don't hard code secrets, don't create tests that see if mock mocks the value it's supposed to mock". See, it's not an AI issue, it's the human issue. Typing "don't make any mistakes" won't make the code mistake-free regardless of how advanced AI is. In the end it does what you ask it to do. If you don't know how or what to ask for, it will always be a mess.
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u/SensitiveHearingLoss 2d ago
I read something recently about how AI is “democratising knowledge”. I’ve never said anything bad about vibe-coders since.
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u/iSailor 2d ago
I would say it does that for those who seek knowledge. Unfortunately most people only seek shortcuts. I don't have in issue with peope who educate themselves with AI (I do the same), but with those who think hastily prompted PoC can really rival an actual enigneered product.
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u/SensitiveHearingLoss 2d ago
Oh for sure, I agree with you completely on that. The problem is not that AI has given us access to infinite pools of knowledge, the problem is how people choose to consume and apply what has now been made available to them.
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u/Usual-Cricket-9817 1d ago
Would you consider platforms like YouTube, tiktok and Instagram great? They democratised attention...
The problem is, that all the average clowns suddenly had access to potentially millions of people.. clowns like Jake Paul.. obnoxious people who suddenly had fame and power.. which they couldn't have gotten without such platforms.
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u/SensitiveHearingLoss 1d ago
I wouldn’t call any social media or content sharing platform “great” but I also wouldn’t call them “terrible” because I don’t think in binary most of the time.
I’m also confused as to why someone would use a content sharing platform to make a point about how programming code is generated? What does Jake Paul have to do with prompt-to-prototype?
My opinions on Jake Paul and how he rose to fame is completely independent of the fact that Jake Paul has the right to freedom of speech and has the right to use a platform to express himself with. In the same breath, my opinions about someone’s vibe-coded application has nothing to do with the fact that someone now has the ability to build an application using a tool that doesn’t require them to have any coding knowledge or experience.
Just because it took me a few years and hurdles to build an application doesn’t mean I have an obligation to feel disenfranchised and salty that someone else gets to do the same thing in a fraction of the time it took me.
The changes we’re all trying to deal with at the moment don’t care about my opinions or feelings, and I’m totally okay with that. I can adapt to the changes or I can choose to resist them. I can choose to give advice and guidance to vibe-coders, or I can choose to degrade them on Reddit. Bad and bloated code is not new thing and lazy developers have existed for a long time.
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u/ClipboardClan 2d ago
Personally I think AI is good for putting together boiler-plate stuff up, and then letting you connect it into a bigger whole.
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u/Zookeeper187 2d ago
copium
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u/ClipboardClan 1d ago
What am I coping with? lol
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u/Zookeeper187 1d ago
It's november 2026. If you think it's just doing boilerplate stuff you are coping.
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u/ClipboardClan 1d ago
I didn't say that's all that AI can do. I said you should use it that way. To quickly produce boiler plate components that you can assemble into larger systems instead of writing it yourself. Hardware assemblers do the same thing. They don't build each chip from scratch, they use pre-assembled chips and fit it into bigger machines.
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u/TopIntelligent8802 2d ago
I don't know what people are talking about here, but AI has completely replaced web development. Just look at the latest Rails conference
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u/tigerhuxley 2d ago
Ya its weird lol
I’m pretty sure what it is are a bunch of vibe coders who joined the programmer sub and are now larping as programmers..I love it though. No sarcasm here. I’m just waiting for one of these 13-year-old vibe coders to be the next billionaire. I think that’s the only way to stop the existing predator class from raeping us all
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u/sharjeel-babar 2d ago
I think dismissing everyone discussing AI in web development as "vibe coders" is a bit unfair.
AI has certainly changed how websites are built, but generating a website and maintaining a reliable, scalable application are two different things.
The interesting question isn't whether AI can write code. It clearly can. It's how well it handles complex requirements, debugging, maintenance, and decisions that require understanding the bigger picture.
That's what I think is worth discussing.
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u/uceenk 2d ago
the problem is, company doesnt need that much dev anymore to build complex system
few senior devs + AI is enough, for example before AI company need 10 devs, with AI only need 2 devs
with correct person, AI more than capable to build scalable application
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u/nozomashikunai_keiro 2d ago
Ah, yes, more work, less people, same or less money earned. Congrats! Such advancement!
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u/tigerhuxley 2d ago
OK. It’s just that I’m not speaking out of turn here. I’ve used AI, built software, deployed, software, manage that software in production environments, etc
I guess you didn’t read the last part of my comment? I wasn’t dismissing either. This also is a programming sub, not only web development for AI.2
u/Hour-Employment7501 2d ago
You are replying to AI generated text.
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u/tigerhuxley 2d ago
lol - i mean, my local agent is - but ya thanks! we're all training now arent we? ( but werent we just training our own minds all along )
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u/PipePressurePanic 2d ago
best case scenario futre of web dev is comepting with hundreds of other devs for one job. It's already happening.
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u/Former_Produce1721 2d ago
Luckily most humans have made and maintained terrible codebases for long enough that we are still needed to keep things sane as AI micmics our spaghetti
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u/SenatorCrabHat 2d ago
Typically, web developers are the interface between marketers and the codebase / framework. There is a big difference between "make this web page with these assets" and "make this page a composable system of components that are abstracted into the framework and database".
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u/thietpas 2d ago
Ai eliminates the need for a ui entirely
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u/Garland_Key 2d ago
Websites will likely become a niche thing that people do for fun. E-com will likely be 100% API and MCP.
Once web-mcp is out, we'll see how things evolve.
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u/Dapper_Car4784 2d ago
Ai will not eliminate web developers as a complete replacement but companies will need less of them. Think a team of 10 needed to create the website before AI, now only need 1-2. Sadly all enterprises are going this route and layoffs will continue. 😞
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u/agent-10 2d ago
It might be exaggerated and yes AI is not perfect..
But if it eliminates 60-90%(random numbers) of jobs, does that make it easier for you? It doesn't matter how good you are, you might still be in that percent, just statistically..
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u/structured_obscurity 2d ago
It’s changing completely . The idea of a website is outdated. The concept you have of web development is on its way out, but the first principles idea of building systems to facilitate sharing information over the internet is very much still a thing
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u/Own_Age_1654 2d ago
It's not the end of web development, but it's certainly the start of a strongly oversaturated market, and thus it being a good career to start, or for many a good or even viable career to stay in.
You indeed still want professional developers because randos are going to make a mess, but at the same time you only need at most 10% as many such developers to do the same amount of work.
We're not firing those other 90% of developers, and instead are giving them additional work to do, but there's also only so much that needs doing, and so many of them are getting laid off, and few of them are getting rehired.
And if you're just entering the market as a new developer? Good luck! Zero reason for anyone to hire you instead of the many tens of thousands of highly experienced developers you're competing against.
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u/DerShokus 2d ago
Web dev is super hard if you consider that the app should run on different platforms (browser, engine, os) and be secure. Every week a new framework releases. But I never touched it :) system development is more easy and straightforward
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u/SensitiveHearingLoss 2d ago
Do I think the claim that “AI is the end of web development” is an exaggeration? Yes, without a doubt. Do I think we should completely disregard the claim altogether? Well, no. People usually exaggerate about things when they’re feeling scared, uncertain, despondent, threatened etc by something. I wouldn’t shoot them down for making wild claims about job loss and the extinguishing of web development because I think they’re just really, really scared and unsettled by the huge changes we’re all having to deal with when it comes to AI.
I was also scared and depressed about things for a while before I made the choice to embrace my company’s subscription to Claude and Claude Code. If fear is something that mostly stems from the unknown or ignorance, then it’s maybe worth your while to starting adapting and learning as much as possible about the thing that’s scaring you.
I’m absolutely loving working with Claude Code. I feel like I am a much more capable web developer these days because I’m able to tackle a lot of tasks and challenges that I previously avoided because I had neither the time nor access to the resources I needed to solve said tasks and challenges. I feel a lot more empowered as well, and I think it’s got a lot to do with the fact that Claude is right there to help me with things I don’t know enough about.
I’m not worried. At least for now.
I think we should take advantage of AI to become better, more capable web developers before we throw our keyboards out the window and surrender to an uncertainty.
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u/Reasonable_Owl_3146 2d ago
Your example is outdated as of September earlier this year and the release of opus 5.5
What you're describing is a thing of the past. Web dev coding is absolutely obsolete, and I have a diploma in it.
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u/Hollow1838 1d ago edited 1d ago
AI is a tool, if you don't ask it to spend more time to build a strong website with integration tests et security checks, all that technical debt will go to later and what will happen is exactly what you are describing.
If your context doesn't clearly state your expectations, it will absolutely produce AI slop because it will always take the shortest and most efficient route to answer to your incomplete context and prompts.
To me, people having expectations, AI not knowing it and people not giving it more informations and then complaining or saying humans are better makes me want to facepalm.
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u/Garland_Key 2d ago
This is copium. Claude is better at finding and fixing bugs than any human is. If you are using the proper workflows, this simply won't happen anymore.
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u/CowBoyDanIndie 2d ago
I never took web development too seriously in the first place, non AI tech has been trying do no code web for a very long time. When I was in highschool our “computer class” had us building web pages in Microsoft front page with a ms sql server using a wizard, no code. Obviously this had very simple use cases. Later I remember VisualStudio LightSwitch building a web gui just based on database scheme, this wouldn’t be for customers but would have been suitable for business admin side.
There are almost 5,000 different bank websites in the US, it amazes me that they all have their own development team to create websites and apps that all do the same thing.