Revenge of the junior developer
April 7, 2025
If you still think of AI-based code-autocompletion suggestions as the primary way programmers use AI, and/or you are still measuring Completion Acceptance Rate (CAR), then you are sitting on the vaguely dinosaur-shaped curve representing Traditional Programming in Figure 1. This curve super-slides into obsolescence around 2027.I have bad news: Code completions were very popular a year ago, a time that now feels like a distant prequel. But they are now the AI equivalent of “dead man walking.”
In May 20224, Steve Yegge wrote The death of the junior developer speculating that LLM based programming would have a very negative impact on the prospects of junior developers (and juniors in a lot of knowledge based careers and professions).
He’s followed that up with The revenge of the junior developer.
He observes
If you still think of AI-based code-autocompletion suggestions as the primary way programmers use AI, and/or you are still measuring Completion Acceptance Rate (CAR), then you are sitting on the vaguely dinosaur-shaped curve representing Traditional Programming in Figure 1. This curve super-slides into obsolescence around 2027.
I have bad news: Code completions were very popular a year ago, a time that now feels like a distant prequel. But they are now the AI equivalent of “dead man walking.”
