AI coding tools do not replace the need to read code

Talking to AI can help someone build an app, but it does not automatically make them a strong programmer. Some skills, like typing, used to be special and later became ordinary; others, like deep teaching and books, remain valuable. Coding could look like a fading skill because some students can now make apps with AI without being able to read or write code themselves.

But top engineers are valuable because they understand hard problems more deeply than others. Reading and writing large codebases is one way they build that understanding. AI chat alone will not turn someone into a top programmer.

In the future, the best engineers may read more code than before, helped by tools that make code easier to understand. Code is not the final goal, but understanding code remains part of building good software.