Most of us picked a side and won't budge. Which one are you on?

Manager.dev

A personal story and industry reflection on the growing divide between 'builders' (product-focused engineers who embrace AI-generated code without reading it) and 'keepers' (craft-focused engineers who prioritize code quality and understanding). The author shares how this tension destroyed his co-founder relationship, observes the same split within his own team, and argues that both extremes are wrong. Uses DHH's public shift on AI coding as an example of healthy opinion evolution. Concludes that context matters — your position on the spectrum shifts depending on who you're talking to — and that pragmatic middle ground beats ideological rigidity.

The software engineering war

I use AI for two things: mentoring me on advanced concepts and crushing tedious boilerplate. Offloading the simple stuff frees me up to focus on the high-stakes, sophisticated code that I still entirely write by hand.

This is very based and well written, thank you! Though personally I’m more on the Keeper side of things, I think the pragmatic middle ground is the way to go.
We need more of those honest, calm discussions about the downsides and trade-offs of either approach and make the right decision that fits the project.