---
title: "Coding by hand is becoming obsolete - Andrew Ng. I disagree."
slug: coding-by-hand-is-becoming-obsolete-andrew-ng-i-disagree
date_published: 2025-11-05T06:34:38.583Z
original_url: https://www.tigzig.com/post/coding-by-hand-is-becoming-obsolete-andrew-ng-i-disagree
source: migrated
processed_at: 2025-12-03T12:00:00.000Z
---

# Coding by hand is becoming obsolete - Andrew Ng. I disagree.

It already is. Andrew is just being polite.

After 25 years of writing code line by line, I now execute everything with AI Coders. Claude Code, Cursor, and Gemini CLI are my day-to-day tools.

AI does the coding, but I still review, explain, and learn from it. The buck stops with me.

## The speed of execution is huge. But that's just one part of it.

It's about what can now be done. My pre-AI world was limited to SAS, Python, Excel, SQL and ML models. Projects I once declined because of technical limits I now take on and deliver confidently. My analytics portal ([app.tigzig.com](http://app.tigzig.com/)) with 30+ micro apps was built this way, in parallel with client projects. It's still a stretch - error logs, debugging, validation. Faster, yes. Easier, yes. The grind doesn't go away. But, what I deliver now is on a different scale.

## The core skill today isn't syntax.

It's domain understanding and working with AI - how you convey intent, plan the project, review output, and validate results. And - the more you understand architecture, the greater your edge.

Coding by hand is ancient history. That time has gone. This is the era of AI Coders.

## Skip the hesitation

* Stop coding by hand.
* New to code? Use ChatGPT or Google AI Studio. Try VBA or Python in Excel (xlwings Lite).
* For notebooks: use an embedded coder such as Mito-AI (part of my stack). Jupyter-AI (yet to try)
* For scripts and apps: start with VS Code + Gemini CLI (free). Move to Cursor or Claude Code as needed.

Remember: share what you know, ask what you don't, tell it what you want, iterate, validate.

Cursor, VS Code, Claude Code, Gemini CLI - these are now necessary tools for analysts and data scientists alongside Excel, Jupyter, and Colab.

## Resources

* For a quick start: [youtube.com/@VoloBuilds](https://youtube.com/@VoloBuilds) on YouTube - practical tutorials from an experienced developer. Simple to complex builds across major tools.
* For more guides, closer to your use cases: YouTube - just search and pick the first few.
* For analytics-specific resources and guides: [tigzig.com](http://tigzig.com/)
* For live analytics apps (open source) Database AI, Quants, GPTs and Automations: [app.tigzig.com](http://app.tigzig.com/)

![AI Coders](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/ef0c19_0382fc9d461042f4958113df679d43e3~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_740,h_424,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/ef0c19_0382fc9d461042f4958113df679d43e3~mv2.png)