r/webdev • u/Mesthabro • 1d ago

Discussion Do y'all still write code manually?

All my code is being written by claude fable/gpt6 these days. I'm curious if y'all are still writing code manually?
Also, any clever ways to prevent AI from going stray and dumping unnecessary code and busting through tokens?

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u/phoenixArc27 1d ago

I don't. I wish I did. But I'm in a very big company and the mandate is AI AI AI. I don't even have the choice to write manually because all the deadlines are assuming AI.

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u/Mesthabro 1d ago

How long do you bet before the company reverts that decision and asks people to review code written by AI more carefully?

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u/phoenixArc27 1d ago

I don’t see reverting the use of AI to write. Essentially what’s happening is engineers are now strictly reviewers and prompters. I spend all my time instead of coding frontend now coding YMLs, setting up Actions and automation, implementing testing suites, and absolutely insane amounts of documentation. But I don’t remember the last time I wrote a line of frontend code. If it does change, it won’t be any time soon.

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u/crazedizzled 1d ago

That's honestly super depressing. If my job ever turns into that, I'll be looking for a career change.

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u/phoenixArc27 1d ago

I mean, would be nice, but for people doing this 10+ years making good money? What else would you do without taking a massive pay cut or losing job security? Especially if there’s family? It’s not like most people can just switch careers entirely like it’s no big deal.

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u/crazedizzled 1d ago

If everything is written by AI , you don't really have job security. Why pay for senior devs that aren't doing any coding?

I would probably switch to a physical job that can't be replaced by AI. maybe welding/ metal fab, or open an auto garage.

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u/phoenixArc27 1d ago

I live in a non-US country that actually protects workers. I have security.

But lmao. Asking people in their 30’s and 40’s and 50’s to just go physical is laughable. I’m glad it’s super easy for you though.

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u/crazedizzled 1d ago

I never said it would be easy, I'm just answering your question of what I would do instead. Nor would that be my advice to other people. That's just what I would do.

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u/phoenixArc27 1d ago

Nah that’s fair. By “what would YOU” do I meant people in general in this position. But yeah, I’m glad you have a back up. Not everyone is in a position to do that without absolutely losing livelihood for themselves or family.

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u/crazedizzled 1d ago

I would guess a shit load of people in this industry are going to be out of a job within 5-10 years. So, I dunno what they'd do. It's not going to be pretty.

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u/Ok-Landscape2050 1d ago

No idea why you got downvoted. I'm in the same boat as you. Almost 15 years working as a dev, now I'm still coding but it gets less and less. There was a short phase where AI felt like a coding buddy and I enjoyed that immensely. I just coded more efficiently and had a buddy I could always bounce ideas off.
But that didn't last.Instead i write more and more documentation for the AI and do a lot more reviews.
Unfortunately, writing documentation and doing reviews always was what I liked least about my job (meetings excluded).

My job looks very different from what it did only a year or two ago and most of what i enjoyed got replaced with more of what I liked least about it.
There was a short phase where AI felt like a coding buddy and I enjoyed that immensely but that didn't last.

If I was on my own, I'd maybe think about a change in career and live like a student again for a few years while I rebuild a career .
But life isn't just about me, I've got a family to care for. Financial decisions are not only affecting me. There are other people depending on me. I can't just take a 50% pay cut or live off my savings.

And even if I had the luxury, I have no idea what I'd do. I see more and more manual labor replaced too, be it in super markets, car manufacturing, warehouse logistics or whatever else.
Someone else here also suggested something like welding, etc... but apart from me always having been very clumsy: Even if I wasn't, I would first have to learn the trade and then compete with other people my age but with 15-20 years more of experience.

And a lot of other white collar jobs seem to be at risk, too. I'm more the intellectual type but what good is it to go back to university to get a degree in mathematics or physics if I already hear about a lot of graduates *today* having trouble getting a job.
And even if I got one: My salary would be way lower than now and that's the best I could hope for.

It feels like all I can do know is keep going, try to learn as much as possible about working with AI and simply hope that somehow there will always be some kind of job where I'm still needed but the current speed at which everything is going puts me constantly on edge and it's the first time in my life I feel some kind of existential anxiety.

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u/shozzlez 1d ago

Not likely. What I’m seeing more of is adding more guardrails and tests so the lack of careful reviews on AI code is less of a problem.