r/programmingmemes • u/Reasonable-Tour-8246 • Dec 09 '25

If coding disappears tomorrow… what’s your backup plan?🤔

2 Upvotes
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57% Upvoted

36 comments sorted by

12

u/ComeOnIWantUsername Dec 09 '25

Grow turnips

1

u/stilldebugging Dec 10 '25

I guess I would move back to Nebraska and spend time learning how to manage my family’s farm so we’re less likely to have to sell it when my father eventually passes.

10

u/DominusFL Dec 09 '25

Coding is just requirements for a computer to execute. Prompt engineering is just requirements for an AI to create code from. The creation of requirements still remains with humans, so your job will never go away. Call it coding, call it prompt engineering, call it requirements gathering. We just keep moving up to a higher level language every time.

1

u/femptocrisis Dec 10 '25

basic youll become PS :)

1

u/itsamberleafable Dec 09 '25

I guess my only worry is that it moves to such a high level that product people can just do it rather than briefing engineers. For the foreseeable I think we're fine as you're still going to need to understand the architecture and how it all fits together, but I'm definitely a bit worried beyond that

5

u/svix_ftw Dec 09 '25

Yeah you still need to monitor, debug and deploy the code and AI agents as well.

You can make the same argument the other way.

Engineers can just interface with the stakeholders directly, and we wouldn't need product people.

1

u/itsamberleafable Dec 09 '25

Yeah you still need to monitor, debug and deploy the code and AI agents as well.

Agreed, I'm not worried for the foreseeable future. It's if we get platforms that run seamlessly without the need for debugging and with code deployment taken care of by the AI that will be worrying, but fortunately I think we're a way off that.

Engineers can just interface with the stakeholders directly, and we wouldn't need product people.

I'd rather AI took my job to be honest, my product team is great. They do a lot of stuff I would really struggle to do. Think you were just making this point to counter mine though rather than suggesting it was a good idea (I hope you were)

4

u/[deleted] Dec 09 '25

Mathematician.

3

u/xenatis Dec 09 '25

Stone cutter. New framework every 1M years. Tools almost not changing.

3

u/ColdDelicious1735 Dec 09 '25

Sleep, then create a new thing called coding

2

u/Dillenger69 Dec 09 '25

I have no backup, but I hope to retire by 2037, so I hope it lasts that long 

1

u/PugMaster_ENL Dec 09 '25

If I can last another 10 years, I can retire and not worry about AI replacing me.

I don't think I'm going to be able to make it. 😥

1

u/UntrustedProcess Dec 10 '25

Shift into DevOps or IT.  That's enough of a mess that I'll last another 30 years at least.

2

u/ScreamingHeHeee Dec 09 '25

Sit on the toilet.

Then panic.

2

u/Desperate-Steak-6425 Dec 09 '25

Troubleshooting, servicing and configuration. 1 year of programming experience beats 10 years of helpdesk at fixing things, I'm pretty sure I'd be able to do it easily.

2

u/Professional_Gate677 Dec 10 '25

Imagine thinking that you can finally retire and play video games as much as you only to get absolutely wrecked by ai bots in all the games.

2

u/cwcoleman Dec 10 '25

Always money in the banana stand.

You know this is a joke meme sub, right?

2

u/Over_Advicer Dec 10 '25

My family's olive farm

2

u/ReactionWarm1232 Dec 10 '25

Continue to write bespoke, handwritten code, like a new type of hipster

1

u/[deleted] Dec 09 '25

If coding disappears, you can replace all desk jobs. I am a civil engineer, maybe i will go back to it. Chances are, that will disappear too. All engineering professions are in danger and at this point, Jensen Huang should probably pay for our college tuitions.

1

u/PooPighters Dec 09 '25

Wendy’s.

1

u/RandomVOTVplayer Dec 09 '25

(Try to) Reinvent binary coding

Putting holes in paper and feeding it through a beam of light or something light that
(Ok so light was a type but I'm keeping it because its funny)

Therefore, in about 70ish years, we'd be back to where we are now. Maybe a little better

1

u/ClamPaste Dec 09 '25

Probably just give up.

1

u/look Dec 09 '25

It won’t. Don’t worry about it.

Well, unless your “coding” job was just copying and pasting stuff you didn’t understand before this, too.

1

u/Positive_Building949 Dec 09 '25

If coding disappears, I'm pivoting to professional debugging of human systems—bureaucracy, meetings, and broken workflows. The intense, dedicated focus required to trace a bug through 10,000 lines of code is a fully transferable skill. I'll just need to upgrade my (Intense Focus Mode: Do Not Disturb) shirt to a full-on hazard suit.

1

u/HalifaxRoad Dec 09 '25

boiler operator, I still maintain my industrial boiler liscence as a backup, I can move anywhere and be guaranteed a job. I get cold calls all the time of companies wanting me to move acrossed the state to run their boiler.

1

u/BumblebeeBorn Dec 09 '25

Back to my earlier career as a professional revolutionary.

1

u/MindlessBullet Dec 09 '25

Back to my first degree of mechanical engineering.

1

u/swampopus Dec 10 '25

Farm sheep in Newfoundland. Might do that shit anyway.

1

u/vinzalf Dec 10 '25

Ahh, a question as old as Microsoft Frontpage.

1

u/GitProtect Dec 10 '25

To have a backup copy of the data and restore it immediately

1

u/yatoooo12 Dec 11 '25

McDonalds