We’re in the manual-transmission phase of AI coding. Push-button, fully-automatic shipping is coming, but right now you still have to use the clutch, shift gears, and time the revs yourself. Choosing to wait for the automatic transmission is choosing to be left in the dust by competitors who are driving stick

The gearbox history nobody asked for

  • Pre-1930s: Every car comes with a manual transmission because that’s literally all there was. You either learned to drive stick or you walked.
  • 1939: Oldsmobile drops the Hydra-Matic—the first mass-produced automatic transmission.1 Suddenly you don’t need to coordinate three limbs to not stall at a traffic light.
  • 1957: Automatics capture 80% of new-car sales.2 America collectively decides that convenience beats character.
  • 2021-24: Manuals cling to life at around 1% of new sales.3 66% of Americans claim they can drive stick,4 but only 18% actually can without stalling.5

Bottom line: Manuals went from mandatory to extinct in 20 years.

The lesson: For decades, manual was the only option. You either learned to work the clutch or you walked everywhere. No amount of whining about coordination or stalling changed the reality. If you wanted to get somewhere fast, you mastered the stick.

The parallel: Too many engineers expect AI coding assistants to work like magic. They want the automatic transmission when we’re still firmly in the manual era.

You can’t just mash the gas and hope for the best. These tools require technique, timing, and practice. Complaining that Claude Code doesn’t read your mind or that Cursor occasionally generates garbage misses the point entirely.

Reality check: Today’s AI coding tools are the worst they’ll ever be. In a few years, we’ll have systems that ship entire applications indistinguishable from senior engineering teams. But right now? Right now we have the manual transmission.

Want the productivity gains? Learn to use the clutch.

Stop reading, start shifting

Here is my constantly-evolving workflow repo: github.com/maafk/cursor-setup

Fair warning: it’s opinionated, occasionally wrong, and definitely not perfect. But it’s real, it works, and it’ll get you shifting gears instead of grinding them.

The business reality check

Driving exists to get you from Point A to Point B. The method doesn’t matter; manual, automatic, or riding a unicycle, as long as you arrive on time and in one piece. Use the method that gets you there fastest.

Shipping software exists to deliver business value. Period. We’re not here to flex our intellectual superiority or prove we’re “real engineers.”

Your stakeholders don’t care if you hand-crafted every line of code with artisanal attention to detail or if an AI barfed it out in 30 seconds. They care that it works, ships on time, and doesn’t break everything.

The automatic transmission is coming. You can either learn to drive stick now and dominate the transition, or watch everyone else speed past while you’re still figuring out the clutch.

Don’t be the dev equivalent of that person insisting on film cameras because “digital isn’t real photography.” And don’t be the engineer who won’t touch AI tools because they require actual thought and technique; waiting around for the magic button that writes perfect code.

  1. Oldsmobile introduced the Hydra-Matic for the 1939 model year, the first mass-produced fully automatic transmission. Wikipedia ↩︎

  2. By the 1957 model year, automatic gearboxes had already taken over about 80% of the U.S. market. HowStuffWorks ↩︎

  3. Manual transmissions accounted for under 1% of U.S. new-car sales in 2021. Motor1 ↩︎

  4. A 2020 Harris/Kelley Blue Book poll found 66% of American drivers claim they know how to drive stick. KBB ↩︎

  5. Separate reporting cites only 18% of Americans who can actually handle a manual transmission without embarrassing themselves. CBS News ↩︎