A developer quit AI coding tools for a month and reports no drop in output.

The September 25 post describes running several agents at once until they couldn't explain code they were shipping, spending longer reviewing AI PRs than writing the code would have taken, and missing a basic testing error in review. After a month of hand-writing, they say they're pushing significant changes every day with more confidence. One anecdote. It sits directly opposite DHH's Rails World keynote, where he said hand-writing code "no longer makes economic sense," hasn't written a line by hand since March, and called English a better programming language than Ruby. Simon Willison split the difference the same day: coding agents "make software engineering even harder," because getting their full value "requires extraordinary discipline and knowledge." I'm with Willison. The discipline is the whole job now.