March 23, 2026

Increasingly, I use coding agents instead of writing software. For example, I built a Blog UMAP. Then, I built Calvin UMAP. And more. But instead of building re-usable software, I just ran Claude with prior context. Increasingly, I use coding agents to run software. For example, I use Codex to classify my expense receipts. It writes re-usable code, but I run it using Codex, and it updates the code with new/edge cases. ...

I kept hearing that with the Nov 2025 release of Opus 4.5 and GPT 5.2 Codex, ex-coders were sprinting back to coding. On a sample of ~1,700 developers on GitHub, exactly ten fit the “dormant returner” profile. Here are a couple of examples: But they’re the exception. I could find only TEN out of 1,700 developers who returned. I also found a few who exited: To be fair, the vibe coding revolution is real, but maybe we are (I am) mis-interpreting it. ...