The distance to my code

These days I get more code and features done than ever before—like anyone else using agentic coding tools like Claude Code or Codex. These models and tools have become so powerful since the fall of 2025, it's mind blowing.

It's gone so far that typing code now feels like being a caveman.

When coding agents take over the writing part, our main job as developers is about requirements, guiding and review. If all three are well prepared and executed by us, the results are nearly perfect … and completed in a fraction of the time. Not to mention that we can "work" on multiple features in multiple projects at the same time.

What a time to be a developer.

But as I work more intensely with agents and rarely write code by hand, something starts to feel wrong. And tonight it became clear to me what it is: AI is in between me and my code.

Imagine an author that tells an AI about an idea for a book. And the agent fills the blank pages. Or a painter telling AI about a vision of a painting. And the AI paints it. That's what coding feels like now.

I write software for more than 25 years and I can say that I have a deep understanding of how to write good and maintainable code. Looking at the codebase of my projects, I feel at home, because every corner of the code was made by me.

But now it's different. There is a disconnect to my code. Is this even still "my" code?

And no, it's not like working with other developers on a project. When I look at code I often can see if it is written by me or someone else. Everyone has their own style, their own fingerprint. Code written by agents is a strange mix of my and someone else's style.

All code comes from my brain, but no longer from my fingers. A weird feeling to me.

I'm extremely bullish about being a developer these days. Yet I'm afraid that we will lose one of the exciting parts of our job: writing code itself.

Developers will no longer write code as their main activity. They will orchestrate agents to do the writing and to some extent take over some of the thinking and knowledge part. It's still a lot of knowledge required to get the same result as writing by hand, but it's a completely different way to work.

We are all still involved in the process of coding. Yet, there is now a distance to our code. And I'm still figuring out how I feel about that.