Software development is dead

I want to make it clear that this is the opinion of someone who is genuinely passionate about building applications.

I have been building websites, web apps, mobile apps, servers and so on since 2015, more than 10 years.

In all that time I have been through everything: tooling changes, constant updates, problems with no solution for months on end.

In the last three years, however, the paradigm has changed completely.

How development evolved

Before the 2022 release of ChatGPT that turned the world upside down, we developers had several options for solving a problem.

We would search Stack Overflow first. If we found it quickly, great; if not, we had to read the documentation for the tool or service.

If we got stuck, we had two more options: post a question on Stack Overflow, or ask someone with more experience than us directly (the wise ones).

Once ChatGPT arrived, the first option was relegated to asking the chat. Fine so far. A new tool that spared us searching over and over and digging deep into Stack Overflow. A saving in time, but not in creativity.

After that came new plugins and tools, like Cursor, which embedded the ChatGPT chat, or other models, and also gave you AI autocomplete on tab. Same as before: same creativity, faster execution.

Where the problem starts

A few months ago coding agents appeared that practically program for you. Claude Code, for instance. This marvel, or nightmare, depending on how you want to see it, can write 99.9% of your code today.

Many companies still restrict their developers from using AI and, in my opinion, they are shooting themselves in the foot, because they are competing against companies whose development is vastly faster.

A large part of the market believes the code introduces security flaws, spaghetti code, bugs and so on. All of that is true if you do not have a good copilot, meaning someone with technical knowledge monitoring what the AI does, plus solid documentation of both style and architecture rules.

Either way, what is being asked for today is speed. Teams are shrinking. Developers do more with less. But how do we developers feel about it?

A personal view

Yes, I will say it again: to me software development is dead. Even the software workflow is broken. You used to start with planning and then a requirements analysis. Today you start with the requirements and Claude does the planning for you.

Beyond that, what saddens me most personally is the loss of creativity. Every developer used to have their own style. To me, programming was a form of art. It was devising, through ingenuity, a solution that had to be clear, simple, optimal, concise, secure and maintainable, and every developer got to the same place by a different road.

Today it means delegating everything that truly fascinated me about this discipline to Claude. You wait ten minutes for the AI to hand you the solution. You read it, refine it, read, refine, read, refine.

Can you imagine a doctor who never again has contact with their patients? A robot does it and the doctor only watches a recording of the key moments. Or a lorry driver whose job is to supervise the self-driving truck and only watch the road. Would those not become boring jobs?

That is how I feel.

Software development has lost its soul. It no longer carries emotion, and it barely makes you think. These days I find myself looking for alternatives to feel creative again. But we will never feel that way building software again.

If you are in the same position as me, I would appreciate you leaving your opinion. I would understand it whether you agree or not. It is true that we have gained in ease and convenience, but we have lost in everything else.