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Programming as Theory Building: Why Senior Developers Are More Valuable Than Ever · cekrem.github.io

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Peter Naur's 1985 theory of programming explains why experience matters more in the age of AI-generated code

Update: I've written a follow-up exploring how AI degrades the institutions where theory-building happens: Part II: When Institutions Crumble In 1985, computer scientist Peter Naur wrote a prescient essay called "Programming as Theory Building" that feels more relevant today than ever. As we watch junior developers reflexively accept LLM-generated code they don't understand, and see codebases balloon with theoretically orphaned implementations, Naur's central thesis becomes crystal clear: a program is not its source code . The Theory Behind the Code Link to heading Naur argues that programming

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