I learned Django 15 years after its inception. After 5 years of experience I'm probably not too far behind someone doing the exact same work as me but for 15 years.
Or would you say people shouldn't learn Django now? As it's useless as they're already far behind? They shouldn't study computer science, as it will be too late?
Every profession have new people continuously entering the workforce, that quickly get up to speed on whatever is in vogue.
Honestly, what you've spent years learning and experimenting with, someone else will be able to learn in months. People will figure out the best ways of using these tools after lots of attempts, and that distilled knowledge will be transferred quickly to others. This is surely painful to hear for those having spent years in the trenches, and is perhaps why you refuse to acknowledge it, but I think it's true.
I would not say that about a framework like Django - though I would encourage people not to under-invest in understanding web fundamentals since once you have those Django, Rails, Next.js etc are all quick to pick up.
I would say that about LLMs.
That's why I'm ringing the alarm bells here. LLM skills are not the same as framework or library usage skills. They aren't clearly documented or predictable - they're really weird!
If you assume learning to use coding agents is the same category of challenge as learning to use something like Django you'll get burned by that assumption.
But what makes it impossible to catch up? Does it matter if I wait a year and then start? It's not a linear thing, at some point I will catch up with those that started before me, as the logarithmic curve of learning flattens out. And then, why does it matter that I started a year later?
Or would you say people shouldn't learn Django now? As it's useless as they're already far behind? They shouldn't study computer science, as it will be too late?
Every profession have new people continuously entering the workforce, that quickly get up to speed on whatever is in vogue.
Honestly, what you've spent years learning and experimenting with, someone else will be able to learn in months. People will figure out the best ways of using these tools after lots of attempts, and that distilled knowledge will be transferred quickly to others. This is surely painful to hear for those having spent years in the trenches, and is perhaps why you refuse to acknowledge it, but I think it's true.