Antirez: AI Coding Tools Reshape Programming Faster Than Expected

Salvatore Sanfilippo, creator of Redis and known as antirez in developer circles, recently shared a sobering perspective on AI's impact on programming. Despite his lifelong dedication to handcrafted code and reservations about AI's economic implications, he now believes programming has irreversibly changed—and faster than he anticipated.

In a detailed account, Sanfilippo described completing four substantial coding tasks in hours instead of weeks using Claude Code:

1. Added UTF-8 support to his linenoise library while creating a terminal emulation framework for testing—work he'd previously deferred due to complexity.
2. Fixed transient failures in Redis test suites involving TCP deadlocks and timing issues, where the AI debugged race conditions autonomously.
3. Created a pure C library for BERT-like model inference matching PyTorch's output and near-identical performance in 5 minutes.
4. Implemented Redis Streams internal changes from a design document in 20 minutes, replicating weeks of his own work.

"It is simply impossible not to see the reality of what is happening," Sanfilippo writes. "Writing code is no longer needed for the most part." He observes a fundamental shift: developers now focus on understanding problems and guiding AI through precise mental representations of tasks, especially effective in system programming where outputs are textually verifiable.

While acknowledging valid concerns about AI centralization and potential job losses, Sanfilippo rejects reactionary anti-AI positions. He compares current AI advancements to open source's democratization of software in the 1990s, enabling small teams to compete with larger organizations. He actively contributes to open source (Redis) partly to counterbalance corporate control, noting that models from Chinese labs and others keep frontier models "within reach."

His social concerns remain palpable: "I'm worried for the folks that will get fired." He advocates for political solutions like wealth redistribution and safety nets while recognizing AI's potential to accelerate scientific progress. For developers resisting adoption, he offers blunt advice: Skipping AI tools won't protect careers. Instead, he urges weeks-long experimentation to discover how AI multiplies productivity.

"What was the fire inside you when you coded till night to see your project working? It was building," he reflects. "Now you can build more and better." His conclusion centers on adaptation—not as surrender, but as evolution toward more ambitious creation with AI as a collaborative partner.

Developer reactions have been mixed, with some praising his pragmatic approach while others express unease about rapid displacement. As one Hacker News commenter noted: "When someone like antirez says coding is fundamentally different, even optimists need to reconsider timelines."