You're no longer a wizard, Harry

Matt Pocock, the TypeScript educator whose great YouTube videos I watched from time to time, used to start his videos with “What’s up, wizards”. This likely referred to the fact that he built the branding of his Total TypeScript course on the theme of wizardry, promising that you could become a TypeScript wizard, talking about the “deep magic of types”, and emphasizing how those who actually understand TypeScript — the “wizards” — become indispensable to their team/company.

About half a year ago, Matt pivoted, and now he posts AI content exclusively. His new course, AI Hero, promises to teach participants how to use Claude Code highly efficiently. (“More fun, less grind”, he says.) And the “What’s up, Wizards?” intro has been gone from his videos. It’s now either “friends” or “folks”, or nothing at all.

With GenAI, we don’t need wizards anymore. Claude will take care of the types, you just focus on the system design and the rest of the higher-level stuff. And sure, that’s always been a critical part of the job on a senior level. But for someone like me for whom the actual coding part was a source of joy, as well as an important contributing factor to allow our teams to build codebases that perform well, scale well, and stay maintainable, the fact that AI is phasing out the coding part means the magic is disappearing.

Harry, nobody cares if you are a wizard anymore. The secret knowledge and the magic spells have been automated. Better focus on the outcomes, or look for a muggle profession if you can’t get with the program, for the times, they are a-changin’.

I feel like the bar pianist who’s been given an piano that can play any song, provided you explain to it well enough what you want from it. Sure, the job was never about the specific notes or chords you played – it was about entertaining the guests of the establishment. Some folks would be overjoyed to be able to lean back and take the role of a glorified playlist editor, without having to mess with the nitty-gritty details of hitting the keys on the keyboard. Surely, this super piano is much more efficient in creating the required ambience than a puny human who has to study and practice for years on end to perform. And since the setting is just the local bar, not Carnegie Hall, the “good enough” outcome for the lowest price is the most desirable.

And yet, for someone who actually loved playing the piano and cherised the skill that was acquired by sweat and tears over the years, this is not a tool that makes their job easier or quicker. This is something that strips them of the very thing that makes them who they are.

And for this reason, I’m currently mourning.
The line, it is drawn, the curse, it is cast.