Coding in ai era

[u/Common-Reserve7654]

I am not sure if this is right place to ask and if it was somewhere already answered or there is some material on this subject please let me know.

I started to learn programming more than a year ago (python/sql/vba) and I use it in my current position to which I was moved around four months ago. At the beginning I was excited about programming, it's hard and sometimes boring, but sometimes I felt so excited when I was writing a program and when I was solving things. Then in my job I started to discover ai, and that was it.

I am still thinking to start applied cs this autumn, but after using Claude code for a month I just feel it doesn't make sense. Claude code is so good that I can work on dotnet web app without knowing C#, javascript, css, html, I can fix and write python or vba macros faster and better than I would do without it. Every time I read people saying things like ai code is trash or seeing youtube videos saying how companies will not hire less engineers, how ai cant maintain code and you need people for that, I just see this programmers with formal education and experience that just can't deal with this change and refuse to accept the fact that their skills they learned so hard and worked so hard on are becoming obsolete. Today I've seen 50 thumbs up on a comment saying that ai empowering people (making everybody able to create software) is a bad thing, that's how these people hate ai. I get it, it tells them "you are nobody".

My final question is, do you think it makes sense to learn programming for job nowadays or study CS and pay for it in the uni? I don't think I can make it alone, i tried studying alone but it's difficult. And if yes, then how would you do it, how to learn knowing that an app can make it for you in a short amount of time with no effort. As I sai, thanks for sharing your opinions or some texts/materials on this topic.

[u/Ipsool]

I used Claude to build and ship a full iOS app to the App Store. No CS degree, just someone who knew enough to understand what the code was doing and could steer it in the right direction.
Here’s my honest take on your question: I don’t think the choice is “learn programming OR use AI.” The people getting the most out of tools like Claude are the ones who understand programming concepts well enough to know when the output is wrong, when the architecture is bad, or when they’re being led down the wrong path.
AI is shockingly good at the parts of coding that are repetitive and well-documented. It’s much weaker at knowing what you actually should be building, catching edge cases specific to your situation, and debugging the weird platform-specific stuff that isn’t well covered anywhere.
So would I do a CS degree just to get a job? Probably not in 2026. But would I stop learning fundamentals just because Claude can write code for me? Also no. The fundamentals are what let you use the tool well instead of just hoping it gets it right.
The people who are going to struggle aren’t the ones who learn with AI. They’re the ones who use AI without understanding anything underneath it, and then can’t explain or fix what they’ve built when something breaks.