September 28, 2026
Programmers will have to change their approach: DHH says the shift took one year
On Sep 28, DHH said programmers who keep working as if nothing had changed over the past year are at risk. He links this to AI competition and calls the shift in how work gets done inevitable.
DHH
@dhh
The only programmers truly in trouble because of AI competition are those who stubbornly believe that today’s world is not much different from the one we lived in a year ago. Accept the new rules of the game or perish. (It has always been this way.)
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In January 2026, DHH described OpenCode as a terminal interface for AI agents: it lets users switch models and save sessions for sharing. Agents gained access to the terminal, tests, web documentation search, and web services through natural-language skills.
The gap has widened. At the start of 2025, AI-generated code was noticeably weaker, DHH wrote. In a January list of new models, he named Claude Opus 4.5, Codex 5, Gemini 3, MiniMax M2.1, and GLM-4.7.
Practice over slogans. DHH used supervised collaboration: agents helped him with small bugs, substantial features, and drafts of major initiatives. At the time, he saw pure vibe coding for professional work as a goal still to be reached.
OpenCode installs in the terminal. Use `curl -fsSL https://opencode.ai/install | bash` or `npm install -g opencode-ai`; you need a modern terminal and provider API keys. With `/connect`, you can choose OpenCode Zen, sign in at opencode.ai/auth, add billing details, and paste an API key.
DHH still does not consider 90% of code coming from agents the norm if code quality and integrity must be preserved.
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