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AI Visual Editing and the Split Between Programming and Coding

26 December 2025 · 57 views · 0 likes · 0 reposts · 113 blog views

AI chatgpt coding design philosophy product

Cursor dropped AI visual editing - same old story that designers should code because the end product of our interfaces is code.

Should they? Is it close to programming vs coding theme too?

Recently I finished reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" where it talks about Quality. Quality is what exists before the split between programming (thinking) and coding (doing). It’s the felt sense of "this is right" that guides both.

It’s actually a pretty clean way to explain why:

great programmers aren’t defined by languages great designers aren’t defined by tools and why canvas vs code is a false conflict

Programming is art - framing the problem, choosing abstractions, setting constraints, having taste.

Coding becomes commodity once the problem is well understood. That part is increasingly easy to outsource to machines.

Same with design. Canvas vs code isn’t a fight. They’re two sides of the same coin.

Exploration and vision on one side, direct manipulation of the end product on the other. Both are useful, depending on what you’re solving.

AI speeds up execution, but speed can hide the fact that you never solved the right problem. Vision, judgment, asking why - that still matters. AI is bad at that part.

As usual: new tools, same fundamentals.

AI Visual Editing and the Split Between Programming and Coding

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