Quoting David Abram

Simon Willison's Blog / 3/24/2026

💬 OpinionSignals & Early TrendsIdeas & Deep Analysis

Key Points

  • The quote argues that the hardest parts of software work are not coding itself, but understanding systems, debugging confusing behavior, designing resilient architectures, and making long-term correctness tradeoffs.
  • It claims that LLMs can assist with code generation and boilerplate or act as a sounding board, but cannot truly understand system context, carry durable “mind” context, or justify decisions.
  • The author emphasizes that choosing what should exist—deciding purpose, tradeoffs, and direction—is the human responsibility and the core source of developer value.
  • The post is presented as a curated quotation rather than an announcement, framing AI assistance as helpful but fundamentally limited for the judgment-heavy aspects of engineering.
  • The broader takeaway is to use LLMs for implementation support while maintaining human ownership of architecture, debugging strategy, and product/system-level decisions.
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23rd March 2026

I have been doing this for years, and the hardest parts of the job were never about typing out code. I have always struggled most with understanding systems, debugging things that made no sense, designing architectures that wouldn't collapse under heavy load, and making decisions that would save months of pain later.

None of these problems can be solved LLMs. They can suggest code, help with boilerplate, sometimes can act as a sounding board. But they don't understand the system, they don't carry context in their "minds", and they certianly don't know why a decision is right or wrong.

And the most importantly, they don't choose. That part is still yours. The real work of software development, the part that makes someone valuable, is knowing what should exist in the first place, and why.

David Abram, The machine didn't take your craft. You gave it up.

Posted 23rd March 2026 at 6:56 pm