What Chris Wellons thinks about code generation
Software engineer who writes about low-level and systems programming at nullprogram.com; author of the Elfeed feed reader, the Endlessh SSH tarpit and Enchive.
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Only Chris Wellons on code generation. See everyone on code generation
4 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Chris Wellons has said — not written or endorsed by them.
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Their wordsTwo years ago I said that AI-generated code was too poor to be practical. That changed by the end of 2025.
↗A new, bespoke static site generator to replace Jekyllnullprogram.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 5 months earlier
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Our readingAI coding assistance now lets a programmer complete in a day work that used to take weeks.
Their wordsThough now that I can accomplish ~3 weeks of old-way work in a new-way day, this sort of project becomes that much easier to start and finish.
- 3 weeks earlier
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Our readingAI tools are now highly effective at generating UI code from a rough natural-language description
Their wordsThis is just one of many situations I've used AI the past month for UI development, and it's been shockingly effective.
↗dcmake: a new CMake debugger UInullprogram.com 1st of 2 in this piece
- 9 days earlier
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Their wordsAI makes programming so cheap that only the rich will write code by hand.
↗2026 has been the most pivotal year in my career… and it's only Marchnullprogram.com 3rd of 3 in this piece