Did You Really Code?

We live in a strange, fascinating, and at the same time dangerous era for intellectual and creative professions, particularly programming.

On social media, phrases like “I coded a game with AI in 5 minutes” or “I built a full app with AI in an afternoon” are enthusiastically repeated.

And I want to pause right there.

Did You Really Code?

From my point of view, it would be more honest and humble to say something like:

“I prompted a partial explanation of my idea to a mysterious, quasi-magical mechanism to generate a remix of fragments of knowledge accumulated over millennia by humanity, resembling a { game | app | website }.”

I’m not saying this to discredit —AI is powerful and useful— but I do believe that saying “I coded” is an undeserved attribution.

Programming involves thinking about architectures, modeling data, planning interactions, considering technical and human limitations, maintaining consistency, anticipating errors, and often having a vision that transcends what code can express. It’s a craft that blends logic, empathy, patience, creativity, and experience.

And AI, at least today, doesn’t replace all that.

Generating code with “vibes” (vibe coding) isn’t the same as building a thoughtful, maintainable, and robust solution. What we get with prompts often results in a fragile, unreadable artifact that’s hard to scale and maintain. A quick aid, yes; a real solution, not necessarily.

I use AI. It’s useful for many things, but I try to be aware of what it entails. And I don’t want to lose that awareness of what it means to use it as a “replacement” for human beings with their needs, values, and many families behind them to feed, educate, and care for.

And regarding programming: I refuse to lose sight of what it truly means to program with skill and depth. I’m concerned that the marketing of “everything in 5 minutes” trivializes years of work, study, and learning. And that by repeating it, we end up believing that knowing how to write prompts is the same as knowing how to program.

Perhaps it’s time to set aside the temptation to claim achievements that don’t entirely belong to us and start valuing (with a bit more humility) that dance between the human and the artificial, where collaboration makes more sense than appropriation.

Thanks for reading.