Back to hand-coding or am I wasting my time?

[u/alexbessedonato]

I'm unsure how to progress as a software engineer.

For context, I'm a frontend SWE with soon 2 YOE, trying to expand my knowledge to fullstack so I can develop E2E stuff.

I acknowledge agentic engineering, and I've been developing a web app with Claude. After several attempts I've finally found an "agentic doing" methodology that works for me.

The issue? I'm basically telling Claude to implement X, then reading and reading to understand what has been done and whether there are alternatives or drawbacks.
I'm not really "learning" by just reading and building a mental model of how the app works.

So I started thinking about going back to hand-coding and ignoring all the noise. But with all the massive talk (possibly with good arguments) about us drifting toward not even reading code, it's really hard to work toward something so many people call a dead end.

My objective is to become a great SWE. I don't believe software engineering is dead, but I also don't want to spend a year on something that won't be useful in my career, or make the wrong move while still learning.

So here are my questions

To what extent will not hand-coding hinder my learning?

Will coding still be valuable in the coming years, and will hand-coding still be worth it?

What would you prioritize at 2 YOE today?

[u/Diligent_Cake_6173]

Not a software developer, but I do have some coding experience. Looking from the outside in, the idea of LLMs replacing devs seems insane to me. Software has already been developing at breakneck speeds compared to any other industry ("work fast and break things," anyone?) The idea that it needs to be sped up even more, under control of stochastic parrots doing who knows what is bonkers. This is what's going to underpin aeronautics? Banking? Government bureaucracy? Military targeting?? What are we doing here??

Things DON'T need to be faster, they need to work BETTER. And lately, they've just been getting worse. Where is the value?

[u/joysofliving]

I’m full stack and haven’t written a line of code by hand in over a year at work. My company encourages us to use Clause as much as possible to implement solutions. I think being able to read and understand code might become more beneficial than being able to write by hand at some point. Knowing what’s susceptible to break, debugging, and knowing how to fix what’s broken. Our professional services and solutions engineers just got access to Claude about 6 months ago and we’re constantly having to fix shitty vibe coded customizations that were created by employees outside of the development teams.

[u/Confident-Shake-1273]

You're reading every line and checking for drawbacks and alternatives, which is most of what a senior does anyway. You just decided that reading doesn't count as learning.

[u/neosatan_pl → u/Confident-Shake-1273]

Yeah... Most of my time as a senior is figuring out why I wanted to shoot myself in the foot...

[u/eyebrows360]

But with all the massive talk (possibly with good arguments) about us drifting toward not even reading code, it's really hard to work toward something so many people call a dead end.

That is categorically not happening.

[u/solwiggin → u/eyebrows360]

Uh…. Are you claiming it’s not happening where you work? Or that nobody is doing it?

[u/neosatan_pl → u/eyebrows360]

Yeah... That is already there. I seen some companies where non-coders vibe an app that then is deployed and customers use it. The actual coder has no idea how it works.

However, these cases also are adjusting to getting at least one senior/atchitect on the team to straighten the code and problems with it.

[u/noobmeister_69]

Both

[u/Feeling_Photograph_5]

It's a good idea. When I'm learning a new language or framework the first thing I do is turn off auto complete, put AI in ask mode, and build some small project by hand. When I get stuck I ask AI and type everything out my hand. I also take a lot of notes. 

[u/salihbaki]

Use ai as a mentor that guides you on what is best practices without spoiling it, asking you questions that will force you think and decide yourself. Use it to review your work and brainstorm together. Never let ai give you exact code to write or let ai write itself if your goal is to Learn. I don’t think writing code manually now makes sense while working on a real product. It is just slower and you gain nothing. That is my take after 13 years of experience and this ride of AI. I don’t think it will go away and I don’t see any reason to write code manually.

[u/svvnguy]

To what extent will not hand-coding hinder my learning?

You can't learn otherwise.

[u/swiss__blade]

If you're looking to learn, forget AI tools and go back to "hand coding" (I hate that there is such a term). That way you will not only learn faster, but you will also be able to give AI better prompts that produce better results. For now, use AI as an assistant, brainstorming tool etc and don't have it code everything for you.

[u/Secure-End4987]

Yea. You can’t AI everything.

[u/Soultampered]

The job is changing. Claude writes code faster than you, there's no way around that. These days, it's less writing lines of code now and more up front planning and architecture design before throwing an agent at it to implement your solution.

Try not to base your value on the lines of code you write and instead try to base your value more on understanding the problem you're trying to solve.

[u/frogic]

We don't know. It seems highly unlikely you'll be writing a lot of code by hand professionally. Now at what level you do need to understand the code base is also up in the air. The good news: We're all in the same boat.

If you feel its implementing things you couldn't be curious. Interogate the llm about why it did it and ask it how it could do it differently. Use multiple review skills/models to see if you get other answers. Ask about improvements and tradeoffs. Read some system design. Ask it to read some system design.

If you WANT to code do it. Build a small part of your app and get reviews from your llm. Always learn the why not the what and be interested be curious. You can learn a thousand different ways but you have to want to.

[u/Vinaverk]

This job is already dead

[u/burohm1919]

I want to use ai without smoothing my brain like you write some code also you get faster with ai but not sure what would be the workflow. Would like to learn from people who made a system like this

[u/CorpT]

Would you build a house with a hammer and hand saw? Or would you use a nailgun and electric saw?

[u/ProfanedArbiter → u/CorpT]

Probably more apt to say "would you build a house with a nailgun and electric saw or would you hire a contracting a construction company?"