APIs need to stay stable even as the systems behind them keep changing. Each version becomes a contract that cannot move, while data models and requirements evolve around it.
Keeping everything working without slowing development is harder than it seems, and common approaches often break down once incremental changes start to accumulate.
I'm at that stage in my career where I don't code much anymore, so I don't really share the same anxieties younger developers have about Gen AI. That might partly explain my more optimistic view.
The goal was simple: help humans navigate complexity. Make domain experts and developers speak the same language.
We had no idea those same boundaries would matter for something else entirely.