About whether generative AI lets developers skip learning the skills they are tested for.
Has this happened?
Yes 63 (50%)Not sure 29 (23%)No 35 (28%)
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
Hacker News has set AI a lot of challenges over the years. Which ones has it met?
About whether generative AI lets developers skip learning the skills they are tested for.
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
I challenge anyone in this forum to create a sizeable production-ready application and maintain it using a language/database/platform they have no idea about by simply asking LLMs to build it. I'm pretty sure anyone will spend enough time banging their heads against a wall trying to fix bugs they have zero understanding about or properly learning the technologies (which they should have done in the first place).
LLMs are great when you're fairly knowledgeable about the topic. You can ask it to automate stuff and you can spot the errors and fix them. Hopefully it automates enough and makes fewer errors than the time it'd take for you to code from scratch.
They currently can make programmers more productive if used right. Now allow a junior to enter the field and never learning some skill because the LLM does it all? Not even close.