Why Most Programmers Are Actually Bad at Programming: The Uncomfortable Truth About Our Industry

Terrance Craddock
Mr. Plan ₿ Publication
5 min readSep 22, 2024

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How a Culture of Over-Reliance on Tools, Shortcuts, and Frameworks Is Creating an Industry of Mediocre Developers (And What We Can Do About It)

As a freelance programmer with over two decades of experience, I’ve had the privilege (and sometimes frustration) of working alongside hundreds of developers across countless projects. Here’s something that’s rarely said out loud, but needs to be: most programmers today aren’t as good at programming as they think they are.

Before you fire up the comment section, let’s get one thing straight — I’m not talking about beginners or juniors. I’m talking about experienced, professional developers, many of whom, despite years in the industry, still lack fundamental skills. It’s not entirely their fault. Our industry has become a crutch for shortcuts, frameworks, and pre-packaged solutions, leading to a generation of coders who don’t actually understand how their code works.

This is the uncomfortable truth about modern software development: the barriers to entry have dropped, but so has the quality of craftsmanship.

The Framework Fallacy

Let’s talk about frameworks and libraries for a second. Whether it’s React, Django, or Flutter…

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Terrance Craddock
Mr. Plan ₿ Publication

I love to write and share my experiences. Join me on my journey as I explore the world and try to give you valuable content.