Back in January I wrote, Normware: The Decline of Software Engineering and, while I think it was generally well-reasoned, I was wrong. Or at least overly ambitious.

I predicted that software engineering as a profession is bound to decline and be replaced by less technical people with AI that are closer to the business problems. I no longer think that will happen, but not for technical reasons, but for social reasons.

What Changed

I saw people code.

I wrote the initial piece after using Cursor’s agent a few times. Since then the tools have gotten even more powerful and I can reliably one-shot entire non-trivial apps. I told a PM buddy about how I was doing it and he wanted to try and… it didn’t work. Not at all.

What I learned:

1. I’m using a lot of hidden technical skills
2. Yes, anyone can do it, but few...