C++ Is Fading — And That’s a Huge Opportunity

So I think that C++ is going to fade in importance much quicker than you'd think. You see C++ its huge advantage has always been runtime speed. Meaning it runs super quickly. So you're writing C++ when you need a highly performant engine or maybe because you're writing code for hardware that is very uh doesn't have much resources. The CPUs are not fast and too much RAM. So you need something very performant. [snorts] But the trend in software development over the decades has always been towards righttime speed. So right time speed is the speed of uh writing software, right? That's what matters most. How quickly can you put out a piece of software? And that's been one of the bottlenecks in software development up until very recently is that there's it's very expensive to write software. So there's a lot of applications, a lot of implementations, a lot of use cases have not been addressed because the money was just not there. We didn't have the infrastructure. So anyway, going back to C++, why do I think it's going to go away? It's going to fade in time because of AI. Because of AI and because of the trend towards higher level languages. So what's going to happen initially is that people are going to be writing things in Python for example or JavaScript and then they'll say um it probably be Python I would guess and then and then they'll have an AI translate that into C++ and then deploy that boom away you go it's already happening so you get the advantages of both world you have your Python code written and Python because it's a higher level uh abstraction it is a much quicker to write with language you know you write x amount of lines of python code you get x amount of app whereas with C++ because uh you have so much more code to write it's so much more difficult you have to write it takes too too long to write it in C++ so people that's why languages like Python and TypeScript and Java and C and JavaScript why that's why they were invented C++ for all its advantages all its power uh because hardware is super powerful and getting more and more powerful every year. The need for all that runtime speed was wasn't really there. Wasn't really there. Like whether uh a particular process takes onetenth of a second to complete or one 1,000th of a second as far as the user concerned. It doesn't really matter, right? It doesn't really matter. So what this going to do in Python, in fact, in the AI stack, since we're in the AI age right now, um, in the AI stack, they would write the core kernel, the hard the high performance section, they would write that in C++, but then they write everything else in Python because I remember one developer in uh, in AI, he was saying that if they had done everything in C++, it would take forever. They could never get it all done. It would be too slow to develop in. So now with AI, they're getting so good now that you could take you can have the AI develop something with you guiding it. You still have to guide it in Python. So you get that quick right time benefit and then you say okay boom turn into C++ or boom turn into assembler which is super fast or go right down to machine. You know perhaps this is this is around the corner. So the change of software development today I is a change in in the level of abstractions a change in focus. Well what you're going to have what's going to make a software developer today is somebody who understands systems system integrations APIs understand the AI stack etc. It's an incredible opportunity. See that's the thing this is not bad for software development. It's just a new opportunity. In fact, I think it's the best opportunity for software developers in my lifetime, and I've been doing this professionally for 30 years. The only other time it was, well, I don't think it's even comparable, was the web. You see, in 1994 when I wrote my first commercial code, the web was still new. Bill Gates was out there saying, "Ah, the web is just a fad." It was that type of thing. Most developers were writing probably, you know, C++ and VB6 code for Windows. most you know some are doing Mac OS some were doing Linux etc but that was like probably the majority of business apps a lot of CDROM development a lot of DVD ROM development you get the idea but that changed so yeah all those VB6 jobs disappeared but the people who jumped into the web had huge opportunities as I had you know so today I think it's even greater with AI so there's so many use cases cases in the AI space there's so many use cases there's so many things that we can approach now that once we've gone through the adjustment period where old school methodologies old school way of thinking about development gradually changes just like we went from thick line BB6 and C++ to web once the old school thinking changes there's going to be massive opportunities I'm already seeing it I'm talking to businesses and they're doing things now uh that they could not possibly do prior to AI based technologies they just couldn't do. So some are doing themselves are doing certain things themselves but they're looking for professionals. They're looking for pros prodevelopers who understand the AI stacks who understand a new abstraction. So if you want to get a job in 2026, the key has always been for noobs was to adopt the new technology, the new stuff. That is where the demand is and that's how you get into it. The need for degrees and detailed uh data structures and algorithm knowledge all those things are going to go fade. What you got to know, you got to understand how to work with agents, how to con make agents, how to work with custom GPTs, you know, how to work with the various protocols and and the various downstream tools from the frontier models. If any of these things don't make sense, you can see how there's a lot of complexity in AI development, right? It's not trivial. It's just different level, but it's hyperformant. I have right now in my daily life. I use three custom GPTs that facilitate my life tremendously. And these are things that I couldn't have built with software, normal software. It would have taken me months to build these things, you know, many many many months to build these things. It would be it would be a full-time job. I got these things built very quickly on the side. Uh so it just improved my life considerably. So this is what's going to happen. This is how software development is going to change going forward. So what we're going to have is we're going to have much tighter much smaller a shorter is probably the best word much shorter development cycles. So that means instead of you working on a project for a year or two years you work on a project for two three months maybe a month and then you're going to move on to the next project and then the next project and then the next project. So instead of you working a long period of time on one app, you'll be working on multiple apps over the same period of time, the iterations in terms of the improvements of the app will just increase exponentially. I don't know if it's exponential but quite a bit. So I have seen for example in my mentoring group we have uh one guy I think right off the top of my head he developed an app uh a service for B2B service. I won't get into the details because I don't want to steal his thunder, but he was able to he was an experienced developer, but he developed with AI. It's kind of a hybrid approach. AI plus traditional stuff. And he was able to develop this app uh in 30 days. I think it was about 30 days, 45 days. And he said without AI would have taken him at least a year, maybe a year and a half to do. He already without just developing the basic prototype in 30 days he got his first three clients already. Three clients already. So, and these are business clients and he's able to go in there and uh provide this service. So, even is only charging him 100 bucks a month, right? Uh if you get, you know, 100 clients, you know what? 100 clients times 100, you know, is it 10,000? uh you get 500 clients, you get the idea. It could add up very quick. So what's going to happen is you're going to have a lot of developers who are going to be developing these micro businesses that could make a half a million, a million, 10 million a year. And of course be some unicorns, people are going to develop billion dollar organizations uh based on mastery of of AI and the AI stack. So there you go. So C++ that's not the game anymore. I'm telling you if you know it's still going to be used but it's going to be developed by AI. And so the masters of the development environment are going to be the AI people. So get on it. That's the opportunity. And again, I've been coding for decades. I have a full mentoring program. I've had to change it. I'm changing it now based on the realities of the ground. Uh so I'm not like uh incentivized, right? It's it would be easier for me to say to you, "No, no, you got to learn the traditional coding and React and data structures and algorithms." It would be easier because I have it's there. I have it. But I would not be serving you if I told you this this stuff. I've given you the solution now. I It's very I'm very excited. I'm animated. I'm old, but I'm still animated because I see the opportunity. I see the opportunity. adopt this new methodology and you will do so so well. I'm not an AI doomer. The AI doomers I think they are wrong. I think they are clueless. I think this is going to explode the quality of life for everybody. I think it's going to explode opportunities as new uh new types of professionals come online. Now, trust me, I also agree there's going to be several professions that are going to go away or they're going to change quite a bit. But anyway, I've given you the route. Here you go. That's it. Of course, I'm I'm pretty optimistic by nature. But to get ahead of the head of the trend, like I said in other videos, I've had several well four companies come to me about AI implementations. I don't and I'm not I'm not advertising. They say, "Steph, we need somebody. Can you can you help it?" So, if you were a developer who knew this stuff, there's four contracts for and I'm not even trying. So, I'm sure there's tons and tons of work to be done. All right? Hope it's useful. I am Uncle Steph and I mentor people in the ways of software development. I've been doing this for 30 years. I have my own platform, studioweb.com. Uh, I teach everything you need to know to be a software developer in 2026. I got new AI modules in there. I got new ones coming in. How to freelance, how to start business. I also teach the foundations of code. you still still good to know that right now. Uh so I teach five languages uh that are very important. JavaScript, Python, PHP, also teach HTML, CSS, I teach a little bit of SQL. But what's more important is you understand the processes. It's more important you understand the structure of things. This is going to make you far better a far better developer even in the AI age. Although again the coding part of the program is much smaller than it used to be because the market has changed. [music]

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