Comment by orphea

  > The act of writing code by hand seems to be on a trajectory of irrelevance

It does not. English (or any human language) is an awful language to write specifications in, because it is not as precise as code. Each time you "compile" your prompt into a program, LLMs spit up something a little bit different. How is it a good thing?

  > so as long as I maintain my ability to reason about code (both by continuing to read it and instruct tools to write it), what’s the issue?

The post mentions this. You need to write code yourself to keep your review skill (know what's good and what's bad) sharp. You think why if you want to learn something, you better get a paper, a pen and write notes, by hand, like in those ancient times? You would think we're in 2026, you can grab an ipad, watch some videos and become an expert? No. You need to have your hands dirty. By writing some damn code.