Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Vibe coding shows us that coding is not all there is to developing software. No duh!

For many years I applied to jobs for software engineers and later what was called “developers.”

“How many recent years have you written Java?” was a common question (substitute any other language).

I tried to explain that coding or programming was about 10% of software engineering or developing software. The reply was blank stares. (See ya’ old man).

Fast forward a few years and we have vibe coding or whatever we call it this week. The current slate of chattering bots are spitting out code. The code works for the most part.

Computer programmers are obsolete! No one is majoring in Computer Science! It is all over! Those were the headlines for a day or three.

But wait. Recent discussions indicate that there is more to this than coding. There are the ideas, the requirements, the designs, maybe even specifications, and Heavens to Betsy (does anyone say that anymore?), there is testing. THERE IS MORE TO DEVELOPING SOFTWARE THAN CODING!

Hmm. What are the chances that I could revisit some of those recruiters who only cared about my recent Java experience. I could tell them, “See? I told you so.” Perhaps zilch. Never mind.

Let’s do better.