Ruby on Rails creator DHH says he's done writing code by hand
Ruby on Rails creator DHH says he stopped hand-writing code in March 2026 and now treats English as the language.
David Heinemeier Hansson, Basecamp co-founder and creator of Ruby on Rails, said at Rails World 2026 that he stopped writing code by hand around March 2026. After 25 years as a professional programmer, he reversed his earlier skepticism of AI coding and argued that manual coding no longer makes economic sense for most programmers and companies. He told the audience that English is a better programming language than Ruby and that programmers will steer AI agents rather than edit code directly. He also said traditional software abstractions lose value when agents change the code, calling the shift the biggest thing in computing history.
- DHH announced the shift at Rails World 2026 after 25 years of programming.
- He says he has not written code by hand since around March 2026.
- A year earlier he had publicly pushed back against AI coding.
- He argues manual coding will soon make little economic sense in most domains.
- He says architecture must change because AI agents now modify the code.
- Products
- Ruby on Rails
- Organizations
- Basecamp
From the original article
1 min read at the-decoder.com
David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails, has quit writing code by hand after 25 years. He says he hasn't typed a single line since March 2026. "English is a better programming language than Ruby," DHH told the audience at Rails World 2026.
By Matthias Bastian · the-decoder.com
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