Something’s been bugging me about how new devs and I need to talk about it. We’re at this weird inflection point in software development. Every junior dev I talk to has Copilot or Claude or GPT running 24/7. They’re shipping code faster than ever. But when I dig deeper into their understanding of what they’re shipping? That’s where things get concerning. Sure, the code works, but ask why it works that way instead of another way? Crickets. Ask about edge cases? Blank stares. The foundational knowledge that used to come from struggling through problems is just… missing. We’re trading deep understanding for quick fixes, and while it feels great in the moment, we’re going to pay for this later.
In reality, coding is something you can learn on your own… or not. Colleges are good for teaching computing science and architectural design, but the good ones will assume you already know how to code. The problem of course, is that when you graduate you are unlikely to find a job as a computer scientist or software architect, and will most likely need to spend 5+ years as a junior programmer first.