For two decades, the best programmers were the ones who could tame data. In the age of AI, the best builders will be the ones who can tame context.
Shanmukh · June 2026 · 5 min read
I remember the first time I genuinely understood why DSA mattered. Not the textbook answer — not "to crack interviews" — but the real reason. It was the moment I realized that every decision a programmer makes is secretly a resource allocation decision. You're always trading something. Time for space. Simplicity for speed. And the engineers who built things that actually scaled were the ones who could think clearly about those tradeoffs.
That insight felt like a lens I couldn't un-see. And lately, I've been feeling the same sensation again — that electric suspicion that something new and important is forming, and most people haven't named it yet.
The pattern
