February 7, 2026
Jetpacks vs JavaScript Tears
We Mourn Our Craft
Coders in mourning, commenters clap back: “Embrace the bots”
TLDR: A mournful essay claims AI is ending the art of hand-coding and turning seniors into code gatekeepers. The crowd fires back: some cheer the bot-powered future, others say tools are clumsy—but either way, jobs and skills are shifting fast, and adapting matters.
A viral essay reads like a breakup letter to hand-written code, picturing programmers reduced to airport-style “code inspectors” while AI tools take over. The writer says the bots already code better than most humans and warns older engineers to use them or be left behind. Cue the comments section turning into a full-on group therapy session. One early reply flips grief into glee: “Agentic engineering is more fun,” and “I, for one, welcome our new LLM overlords!” (LLM = large language model, the chatty AI behind tools like ChatGPT). Others push back on apocalypse vibes. A pragmatic voice says the tools still “need a lot of direction” and admits they fight Claude to do basic tasks, reminding everyone that ideals don’t pay the mortgage. The community’s spiciest moment: the industry that automated everyone else is now shocked it might automate itself. “We’re the industry of ‘we’ll automate your job away’,” one commenter quips. Not all buy the doom: another insists most engineers don’t share the “TSA agent” view. And the meme energy is strong—someone roasts the nostalgia for 2 AM bug hunts with a “no we won’t lol” and a very relatable “dude needs to chill.” For context, read about LLMs.
Key Points
- •The article asserts AI coding tools are effective and will soon outperform most human programmers.
- •Younger developers commonly use tools like Warp, Cursor, Claude, and ChatGPT to boost productivity.
- •Mid-career engineers who avoid AI tools risk being outpaced and questioned about their productivity and compensation.
- •Economic obligations (e.g., mortgage, family) are presented as drivers for adopting AI tools despite moral reservations.
- •The author mourns the decline of traditional hand-coding and personal authorship, while accepting the change’s inevitability.