Salvatore Sanfilippo, better known by the pseudonym antirez and creator of Redis, publishes a position piece encouraging developers not to fall into the "anti-AI hype." Coming from a developer known for his commitment to minimal, well-written code, this testimony carries particular weight.
The author acknowledges from the outset his social concerns regarding job losses and technological centralization linked to AI. However, he argues that "refusing what is happening now" will help neither programmers nor their careers. His central thesis: AI will change programming forever, regardless of ideological positions.
To support his argument, antirez details four recent projects completed with Claude Code in hours rather than weeks. The first concerns modifying Linenoise, his command-line editing library, with the creation of a test framework emulating a terminal. The second involves debugging Redis failures related to TCP timing. The third example is particularly striking: a 700-line BERT en C implementation library generated in 5 minutes, with performance comparable to PyTorch. Finally, he mentions reproducing a design document for Redis Streams in 20 minutes.
The author maintains a nuanced position. Despite these successes, he remains committed to the values of well-written, minimal code. He does not claim that AI replaces developer judgment, but that it considerably amplifies his ability to build.
On the societal level, antirez recommends voting for governments that support those affected by automation, acknowledging that the transition will be painful for some. He nonetheless sees a beneficial potential of AI for science and innovation.
His main message to developers: explore these tools "seriously" rather than rejecting them after superficial tests. He implicitly criticizes those who form their opinion on AI programming without thorough experimentation.
The article concludes with a metaphor inviting readers to rediscover "the fire" of software building. AI is not there to replace this passion but to amplify it. Coming from such a respected figure in the open source community, this call for pragmatism rather than ideological rejection resonates particularly in current debates about the future of the developer profession.