The future of code is exciting and terrifying | The Vergecast

/ 5 hours ago March 17, 2026

From The Verge.

A new era of software development is upon us. Career coders are no longer writing code, but rather managing teams of agents that do the work on their behalf. You can Claude Code your way through seemingly just about any problem. So what does that mean for the software we use, and the people who make it? Paul Ford, a writer and technologist who both writes about code and manages a team of coders, joins the show to explain his somewhat conflicted excitement about the new crop of AI tools, and his worries about what they’ll do to the world. After that, The Verge’s Dominic Preston helps answer a question from the Vergecast Hotline (call 866-VERGE11 or email vergecast@theverge.com!) about the differences between the US phone market and the global phone market, and whether US buyers are missing anything important.

00:00 Intro
03:42 Paul Ford Times Op-Ed Backlash
05:17 Claude Code Breakthrough
10:05 Rebuilding a Personal Web
18:22 Compilers
23:30 Guitar Pedal Vibe Coding
29:54 Blogging Returns on Ftrain
34:40 A Bot-Filled New Internet
36:27 Side Projects
37:06 Web Discovery Is Dead
38:55 AI Promise And Backlash
44:34 Hotline Question
47:46 Camera Arms Race
55:38 Why US Lags Cameras
01:01:42 Walled Garden Hacks
01:05:03 Wrap

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