AI doesn’t make coding irrelevant. It makes coding more accessible.

Here’s something that’s been sitting on my mind.

We’re in a moment where a lot of people are saying learning to code is no longer necessary. That AI can just write the code for you. And on the surface, that argument sounds reasonable.

But I think it misses something fundamental about how software actually works.

The abstraction stack has always looked like this:

Natural Language → [AI translates] → High-Level Code (Python, JS) → [compiler] → Assembly → [CPU] → Machine Language

This is the same pattern software has always followed. We went from punching machine code, to assembly, to C, to Python. Every layer up was an abstraction that made the layer below more accessible. AI is simply the next one.

You can now describe intent in plain English and get working code back. That’s powerful. That’s genuinely a shift.

But here’s what hasn’t changed:

The AI still produces code. That code still runs on software engineering principles, and neglecting those principles is just like pushing code that’s never been vetted. Same same, but different. If you can’t read what it produces, you can’t evaluate it, debug it, extend it, or know when it’s wrong.

Think about it you wouldn’t trust a translator if you had no idea what language they were translating into. Same logic applies here.

And here’s the honest truth: learning a programming language alone isn’t enough right now, because AI is doing that part better by the day. What actually matters is the engineering fundamentals. They teach you how to think in terms of logic, data flow, state, and structure. Those aren’t things AI removes from the equation they’re the things that help you direct AI well.

So do we still need to learn to code?

My take: software engineering fundamentals are non-negotiable. Understanding how code works, what a function does, what an API call is, how data moves through a system these matter more now, not less. You need to be a good reviewer of AI output. And knowing the fundamentals lets you govern what AI writes and how it writes it throughout the entire development process.

A language like Python or JavaScript? Still worth learning not so you can write every line manually, but so you have enough fluency to guide, debug, and extend what AI gives you. It also makes you dangerous in the best way you can go from idea to working system faster than anyone who’s purely prompt-dependent.

The people who will win in this AI era aren’t the ones who can write the most code. They’re the ones who understand the principles well enough to use AI as a force multiplier not a crutch.

Curious where you all stand on this. I’m currently learning Python alongside using AI tools, are you still actively learning a language too? Or have you moved away from it entirely?

Drop your take below 👇

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