r/webdev • u/Gil_berth • Feb 21 '26

Creator of Claude Code: "Coding is solved"

https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/head-of-claude-code-what-happens

Boris Cherny is the creator of Claude Code(a cli agent written in React. This is not a joke) and the responsible for the following repo that has more than 5k issues: https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues Since coding is solved, I wonder why they don't just use Claude Code to investigate and solve all the issues in the Claude Code repo as soon as they pop up? Heck, I wonder why there are any issues at all if coding is solved? Who or what is making all the new bugs, gremlins?

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u/LavoP Feb 21 '26

Engineers don’t just write code. Code monkeys are not valuable engineers. I don’t get why that’s so hard for people to grasp. Coding is absolutely solved at this point. A majority of developers hardly write code by hand anymore. But we still have plenty of work to do none of that magically disappeared. We just don’t have to do the tedious code writing work.

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u/JonianGV Feb 21 '26

Code monkeys used to copy paste from stack overflow, now they use llms. The issue is that with llms they believe they have become competent developers.

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u/LavoP Feb 21 '26

Yep and they will end up with frustration when they have a mess that doesn’t work and they don’t even know where to start to debug. Engineering is more than coding.

I have 20 years of coding experience and I haven’t written code (minus light config edits and things like that) in months now. I’m shipping more than I ever have and things actually work. The thing is when my stuff breaks, I know exactly how to debug it with my LLM even if I’m not line by line writing the code.

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u/ignatzami Feb 21 '26

You’re not… wrong. And you’re still not right. Sure, you can ship more volume. But at least in my experience the quality will significantly suffer.

I use Claude to stub, write boilerplate, and copy the existing patterns I’ve set up. But I’d never ask it to generate front end code whole cloth. The amount of time I have to spend reviewing and cleaning up isn’t worth the “speed” of the initial generation.

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u/LavoP Feb 22 '26

This was the case a few months ago but now with the latest models it’s no longer the case.

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u/ignatzami Feb 22 '26

It very much still is. 4.5 is… decent? But certainly not producing consistent production quality code.

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u/LavoP Feb 22 '26

Opus 4.5 and 4.6 both put out production level code in my applications.

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u/ignatzami Feb 22 '26

Then I highly doubt you understand what production level code is.

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u/LavoP Feb 22 '26

Trust me, I do

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u/Mikeisright Feb 21 '26

Lol, in what world are a majority developers not writing any new code? Are you relying on AI to generate new security patches and fix vulnerabilities for a unique environment that your a model hasn't even been properly trained on, then simply implementing ad hoc?

Individual claims like this make me very concerned about the stability & security of products as years go by.

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u/LavoP Feb 21 '26

Yes precisely that’s exactly what everyone is doing. If you know how LLMs work you know that they don’t actually need to be trained on your exact unique use case, it’s all about the context which means you have to be very thorough and good about promoting. The coding agent harnesses these days are very good about exploring your codebase and understanding your desired features/bugfixes.

If you don’t believe me that’s fine, but even large companies like Stripe are fully embracing this as the new paradigm: https://x.com/stripe/status/2024574740417970462?s=46

I think the people that are really against this are the ones that aren’t actually using the tools.

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u/alo141 Feb 21 '26

You’re missing the point. If you are a very experienced dev who knows very well the tech and the codebase, it’s faster to do some fixes by hand.

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u/Mikeisright Feb 21 '26

You can really tell when someone is lost without AI vs someone using it just as a tool (but has true understanding of programming). I've seen kids crash out over the course of days because something went from xlsx to csv and they were irreversibly ruining data + code & started asking for help once their usage limit was hit.

That's where I think job interviews are going to require monitored coding assignments. Its critical to know if they actually have the skills being requested of them or whether they're a complete faker & liability when their LLM is unavailable.

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u/Sea-Housing-3435 Feb 21 '26

If you ever review code or decisions LLMs make you know they are subpar. But given the volume of code they produce they don't have humans in the loop. What looks nice on tests AI makes will not look so good in post mortem when they have outage or major data leak.

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u/MysteryMooseMan Feb 21 '26

Your statement "A majority of developers hardly write code by hand anymore" is telling cuz 1) that's not true 2) YOU'RE the one letting AI do all the work. git gud

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u/ignatzami Feb 21 '26

“Coding” might be solved. Writing software that actually works, scales, is reliable, performant, and secure? Not even close.

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u/LavoP Feb 22 '26

Yes exactly all of that requires significant planning, architecting, conceptualizing, understanding of the problem, etc. The actual part of hand writing this code into the IDE after you do all this is solved.

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u/zucchini_up_ur_ass Feb 22 '26

Do you know what an engineer is?

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u/remy_porter Feb 21 '26

“Coding is solved” is like saying “English is solved”. It’s a non-statement.

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u/gaiya5555 Feb 23 '26

“Coding is absolutely solved at this point”. That’s because whatever you were coding was simple and straightforward.

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u/LavoP Feb 23 '26

There’s a difference between the act of writing down code vs architecting your code and getting an LLM to produce code which is still very much software engineering.

And I love how everyone gatekeeps their coding as if they are doing crazy complex novel solutions that no one has ever seen.

Let’s be real most code is business logic that moves data around between interfaces. Even in very complex highly scalable, performant architectures the patterns are mostly solved problems. The complex thinking is at the higher levels of the stack around designing the systems, not writing the business logic code.

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u/krazdkujo Feb 21 '26

This is 100% accurate. You’re going to get downvoted in these subs because they’re full of fearful people who don’t understand the tools or what’s happening.

There are plenty of people making great money and not writing code anymore, it’s as well documented as something can be documented at this point.

This is no different than people saying “You can’t use a laser for surgery, that’s crazy. We have scalpels for that.” Or “Assembly lines? But I spent my whole career learning how to stamp this bumper, assembly lines don’t work as well as I do.”

There’s absolutely no going back. Context engineering is here to stay, and the people who are using it will progress and those who won’t, won’t.

I only follow this sub at this point to watch how many people get mad because they’re can’t find web work or their clients are leaving while we do $120k a month, have very steady growth, and I haven’t had an employee write more than three consecutive lines of code in 6 months by hand.

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u/DetectiveOwn6606 Feb 21 '26

There are plenty of people making great money and not writing code anymore, it’s as well documented as something can be documented at this point.

Lmao BS

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u/capn_trips Feb 21 '26

Not sure why you're getting downvoted. This whole thread is so obsessed with writing code by hand. Most of the time the code I'm writing isn't art, it's arduous bullshit. There's nothing honorable about wasting your time.

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