I've been programming for almost 50 years, starting with computers like the Apple II, and I've been thinking about the argument that "real programmers write their own code."
I've heard versions of that argument before — from programmers who preferred writing assembly instead of using compilers, and later from people who didn't trust higher-level languages and other abstractions.
I recently wrote about why I think AI-assisted programming is simply another step in that progression and, importantly, why using AI doesn't mean you can stop understanding programming.
I use two recent projects as examples: recreating my old Apple II BBS, The Norse Wanderer, and working on an Apple II disk preservation and repair tool.
In both cases, the AI was quite capable of writing code. The interesting part was discovering where I still had to understand the problem better than the AI did.
I've been programming since the Apple II era, so this is really a reflection on how the tools have changed — from assembly and compilers to libraries, frameworks, APIs, and now AI.
