Been doing this kind of work since the 90s, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that there’s never been a shortage of hot takes on what makes a “real” engineer.

I was self-taught for my first decade, then got my CS degree while working already as a full-time dev. I’ve seen both sides of the “self-taught vs. formal education” debate. I’ve also lived through the IDE vs. non-IDE wars, the Vim vs. Emacs battles, and was a Linux dev for a decade when everyone else was using Macs and switched sides 5 years ago then everyone went Linux.

Here’s the truth as I’ve seen it: opinions in this field come and go. They’re often rooted in personal insecurity or in “this worked for me so it’s the only right way” thinking.

So here’s mine: no one went back to using encyclopedias after Google showed up. I’m not printing MapQuest directions when GPS exists. Very few of us are still writing assembly, those who are usually do it for niche reasons or street cred.

I remember getting pushback in 2014 for building backend systems in node with JavaScript. Now look where we are.

At the end of the day, whether you’re using LLM tools or not, the only thing that matters is this: can you execute? That’s it. That’s the measure. Everything else is just noise.

I’ve shipped plenty of production apps with help from models, long before tools like Cursor or Lovable were even around 2 years ago. I’m excited for what juniors will create using these tools with intent and curiosity. That’s how they will learn. That’s how they will grow.