"Code was never the hard part" is an insult to all programmers

The software industry is in upheaval as AI tools change the way code is written, and nobody knows how the transformation will end. Amid the debate, one line keeps reappearing: "LLMs may be good at coding, but software was never the hard part." In a blog post, developer Senko Rašić writes that this claim is a gross insult to all programmers.

If coding is easy, why is it so demanding?

Rašić answers with a chain of questions. If coding is easy, why were programmers in high demand and paid large salaries for years, even before the era of cheap money? Why does the profession bring stress, overwork and burnout? Why do companies hunt for "10x ninja rockstar coders" and run leetcode interviews? Why are doorstoppers like Clean Code and The Pragmatic Programmer treated as essential, and why do people regard John Carmack as a great engineer and Fabrice Bellard as a genius? And if coding is easy, why do developers get angry when AI copies their code — and why is software so damn buggy?

There is no median programmer

The author turns the same logic on the opposite cliché. If deciding what to build is the hard part, why do so many product managers seem clueless, and why are they not paid more than developers? Why are market researchers, usability experts and customer success staff not treated as rockstars? Rašić adds that most programmers do not want to talk to stakeholders at all, while those who say "I don't write code, I solve customers' problems" still argue about monads, memory safety and DRY principles. In his view, understanding users and writing good code both matter.

What changes and what never does

Some things will not change, he argues: software keeps growing more complex, it always needs maintenance, and entropy is a fact of life; the tower of abstractions only gets higher. Users will always want more and spend less, and they still will not know exactly what they want. What does change is technology itself: punch cards, assembly language and COBOL are mostly history, and the author recalls valgrind and the PHP4-era mysql_real_escape_string() as tools he will never need again.

How to thrive instead of coping

His advice is to accept change and stay equal parts curious and critical, telling hot air apart from what actually works. Senior developers should learn about user experience, customer interviews and business strategy, while juniors should deepen their understanding of pointers, recursion, memory hierarchy, network protocols and algorithms. He closes with a warning: do not outsource your understanding, judgement, empathy and taste to AI, do not abdicate responsibility — and do not become a "meat proxy".