Why is AI good at Coding

A images of a Lemon meringue, representing how much AI contributes to a software application. AI is the hard bit of the top
Author: Leigh
Date: Monday, 24 August 2026
Time (GMT): 2:55:21 pm

The one industry that LLMs has impacted the most is the software industry. I don't think anyone would dispute that statement. I can write more code and I am better informed when building solutions thanks to LLMs. I am more effective as a developer thanks to LLMs. With that said why is it more impactful in programming than another industry?

I've heard people say "AI runs on computers, so it makes sense they know how to code". That would be like me saying "I am human, therefore I am a doctor, I don't know nothing about me bits". I've also heard "AI researchers are mostly developers" that is also not true. A lot of the security issues around AI proves AI researchers don't know a single thing about IT security or infrastructure.

So what is going on

There are three reasons for this

  • Software industry has the most online documentation: GitHub, Stack Overflow, reddit, and programming blogs. Developers are noisy online, and there is no other industry that documents more. LLMs train on data and it makes sense they learn better from us than anyone else.
  • We use tests to craft our code, LLMs can do the same. You can't really test a book, a work of art, law, you can test code. So when an LLM produces code it can also tests it. When it does not work, it can try again. If you ever watch an agent working on code, it spends a lot of tokens on refining tests. It makes more mistakes than an experienced human, but that does not matter because testing still gets it to the solution, and it moves way faster than us.
  • Libraries let you make better solutions, thats true for humans and LLMs. An LLM does not build you an entire application from scratch. It builds those solutions out of libraries. That means far less bugs. That is not true of writing, legal advice, medical advice, images, or other applications of AI. They are not made up of reusable bits. If you look at an application made by an LLM, id say 10% is AI generated from a model, 90% are libraries mostly made by humans.

Im not bad mouthing LLMs, its definitely made things better! Its important to understand why its better at programming. I think it will always better at writing code because of testing and libraries.

Somethings to think about

Would AI be able to build an entire application from scratch without libraries?

I think it could, I think it would have many many bugs. It would cost a small fortune, we are taking 20k in tokens easily.

Can LLMs replace developers?

Definitely a hard no! Its a parasite, it helps us but it feeds off us. You get rid of developers, thats no online activity, no libraries being produced, everything stops moving forward! This was always the case, and its very true of other industries as well.

So AI wont replace us then?

No it will, but LLMs wont. I think we have a few years yet before AI takes over. I do think its highly likely that a future AI will be so expensive to run that it wont replace humans. Based off the fact LLMs are so expensive, makes sense that a more capable intelligence will cost more.