DHH Declares End of Hand-Writing Code at Rails World 2026

At the Rails World 2026 conference, controversial developer David Heinemeier Hansson, also known as DHH, declared an end to handwritten code, likening the shift to when Kodak introduced the Brownie camera, which transformed photography. DHH's company, 37signals, announced they would no longer write code by hand, opting instead for AI agents as their primary code generation tool, with human intervention only when necessary for code fixes.

DHH himself admitted to writing half as much code in the past twenty months compared to the previous twenty-one months. This change was justified by AI's lack of attachment to generated code, enabling rapid iteration and reduced human bias. DHH noted that in his keynote, only five developers out of the audience had written substantial code by hand.

He highlighted a previous attempt with Basecamp 5, where an early attempt at "vibe-coding" led to an architecture resembling "Swiss cheese." Realizing AI's potential, DHH is now focusing on optimizing the utilization of this intelligence. His team is developing a new version of the email client, Hey, aiming to move beyond web apps.

Demonstrating a native Hey app, DHH showcased its rapid development, completed in just a few weeks using AI. The initial version, while lacking polish, improved significantly within twenty minutes of refining the AI prompt. This showcase underscored the efficiency and future of AI-driven coding, with DHH declaring, "This is coming.

Get ready." The audience's response varied from enthusiasm over productivity gains to nostalgia for the art of manual coding.