Programming: Let AI Do It. No Problem?
January 27, 2026
How about this idea: No one is a good programmer anymore.
Why?
Because the programmers are relying on LLMs instead of Stack Overflow. Ibrahim Diallo explains this conundrum in his blog post: “We Were Never Good Programmers.” Diallo says that users are baling the lack of Stack Overflow usage on heavy moderation, but he believes the answer is more nuanced. Stack Overflow was never meant to be a Q&A forum. It was meant to be a place where experts could find answers and ask questions if they couldn’t find what they needed.
Users were quick to point out to newbies that their questions had already been answered. It was often a tough love situation, specially when users didn’t think their solution was incorrect.
Then along came ChatGPT:
“Now most people, according to that graph at least, aren’t asking their questions on Stack Overflow. They’re going straight to ChatGPT or their favorite LLM. It may look like failure, but I think it means Stack Overflow did exactly what it set out to do. Maybe not the best business strategy for themselves, but the most logical outcome for users. Stack Overflow won by losing.”
Stack Overflow users thought their questions were unique snowflakes, but they weren’t. ChatGPT can answer a question because:
“When you ask ChatGPT that same question and it gives you an answer, it’s not because the LLM is running your code and debugging it in real-time. It’s because large language models are incredibly good at surfacing those existing answers. They were trained on Stack Overflow, after all.”
Stack Overflow forced programmers to rethink how they asked questions and observe their problems from another perspective. This was beneficial because it forced programmers to understand their problems to articulate them clearly.
LLMs force programmers to ask themselves the question: Are you a good enough programmer to resolve your problem when ChatGPT can’t? Answer: MBAs say, “Of course.” Accountants say, “Which is better for the bottom line: A human who wants health care or a software tool? Users say: “This stuff doesn’t work.” Yep, let AI do it.
Whitney Grace, January 27, 2026
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