Gus Mueller, in response to the aforelinked Knauss post:
[…] what is going to make Acorn stand out?
I’m starting to think that’s going to be personality and feel and polish, but turned up a notch.
And:
I’ve got feelings because anyone can put an app together now, so what’s the point of me? But at the same time, I can focus on what I want to focus on and hopefully charge forward and maybe everyone else will get tired of little vibe coded apps because you still have to know exactly what you want to build. And you can’t build something you can’t think of. And I know how to think and I have ideas.
Be sure to go read the entire post.
I like Gus’ thinking. What value do we still bring in this new landscape? I personally feel that my value is being able to spend more time on the important and different parts of what I make. Soft of like the way frameworks were supposed to help with that – handle the mundane parts so I can build the exciting parts. But agents help to kick that up several hundred notches.
I do disagree with something I read in Gus’ post and also what I’m reading from many others; the idea that anyone can build an app now and ship it with little effort.
The “anyone” has always been able to build an app. I have long felt that my personal quality of being willing to push through really hard things is why I was able to make software, not because I was smarter than anyone else. Gus calls himself a middle-tier programmer (from what I hear, he’s selling himself short) but if that is true then I’m definitely on the lowest of tiers. And I still managed to make a living at it since I was ~14. My perseverance (interest? passion?) is my best quality for this job perhaps. So I don’t think that part is new.
How easy it is to create software is easier today than just a few months ago. True. However, shipping and profiting from that software is still not easy at all. You still have to have the fortitude to do it. Selling will continue to be difficult but even packaging it, making it work everywhere it needs to, supporting it, etc. All of these things may be easier but they are not for the faint of heart.
If you weren’t the type of person that was able to push through hard things prior to agentic coding you likely won’t be now that it exists.