I deeply resonate with this. Even when I began reading, I felt myself wanting to jump away into my email or some other needless task. After getting through the premise, it felt almost like a challenge to read the entire blog. Very well done.
The final verdict that software engineers wont exist x years from now is a bit contrived. Today, my team is looking to hire an AI software engineer. I reached out to my close group of developer friends to gauge interest only to find out that each one of them is ALSO trying to find/hire software engineers, all looking for this new "paradigm" of programming knowledge. Maybe how the role itself looks different today than it did 5 years ago but it seems like every company is trying to accelerate their development and finding new opportunities that didn't exist before the AI craze.
More than anything, I believe that AI is pushing out those who enjoyed the ~act~ of programming more than the product being delivered itself. Mostly because those individuals might have the hardest time adopting this new way of getting things done.
And honestly, I feel for them. Coding has always felt like an art form to me. Nothing feels better than someone commenting on the elegance/beauty of something youve written.
I'd probably agree with most in the comment section. Comparing Rust & Zig is not productive. I spent the last month familiarizing myself with Zig after having done a 2 years stint with Rust and Zig is a much younger language with a far smaller ecosystem to work with. If I were to reach for C i'd recommend Zig. If I were reaching for C++ then it would be Rust.
Both are fantastic languages and I hope to see them both evolve in years to come.
Zig has a longer road ahead but it really is elegant and simple to work with.