Coding Is Not Solved

5 Prevalent Themes in the HN Discussion on "Is Coding Solved?"

1. Coding ≠ Software Engineering
   Many argue LLMs handle basic code generation ("coding") but not higher-level software engineering (design, architecture, planning).

   "LLMs even a version number or two ago can write all the code I've ever been paid to write in the last 20 years; but they are not, I think, yet competent enough to be able to handle the project planning and self-QA I was doing even in my first 6 months of my first job after graduating." (ben_w)
   "The idea that 'coding' is just turning a spec into source code without any engineering decisions to be made was always laughable." (flohofwoe)

2. Code Quality and Reliability Concerns
   Widespread skepticism about AI-generated code's robustness, citing hidden bugs, technical debt, and eroded trust.

   "The promised scalability improvements did not materialize. Instead, it got worse. Observability had been lost. The telemetry was no longer trustworthy." (bunderbunder)
   "What I've found is that AI allows lazy and incompetent developers to be more lazy and more incompetent. This then has the effect that product quality suffers more, faster." (askonomm)

3. Accountability Gap
   LLMs cannot be held responsible for errors; humans must retain accountability, but some feel this is being avoided.

   "The main point of the article is accountability and that's not something we can delegate to AI." (hanifbbz, author)
   "AI cannot be held accountable. It cannot suffer any consequences. [...] You cannot punish AI, therefore it can never be held accountable." (jstummbillig)

4. Productivity vs. Quality Trade-off
   While LLMs boost output speed, critics argue this often sacrifices long-term maintainability and correctness.

   "This article would be 100% correct if it came out 1 year ago, 75% correct 9 months ago, 50% correct 3 months ago and it's probably 25% correct now if not less." (temp00345)
   "I’ve found that if I do even 3 months of pure agentic coding with no code reviews, it’s aged 10x faster than a human coded codebase." (an0malous)

5. Evolving Developer Role
   The programmer's job is shifting from writing code to guiding, verifying, and contextualizing AI output.

   "I provide AI with valuable context such as code coverage information, architecture analysis, test requirements... I'm still very much the person who comes up with the solutions." (ben_w)
   "The New Skill of software engineering: can you steer agents well enough to get work done at the speed they will allow, while still keeping enough context/understanding to step in when it matters?" (ketzo)