Is Learning to Code Still Worth It in 2026?

I've been thinking about learning programming, but with AI writing code faster than ever, I'm wondering if it's still worth investing the time.

For those who code professionally or use it in your business:

What language would you learn first today?
Has AI made your job easier or harder?
If you were starting from scratch, what path would you take?

Would appreciate advice from people with real experience. Thanks!

From my personal experience, i'd get a hands on experience in a project you want to build, rather than focusing on learning any specific language. With ai everything's faster, but also easier. But from my experience building a lot of things, if i'd absolutelly needed to point something, it would be php and js. Because almost everything else is derived from then. Even if the logic might be based on C++, i'd rather get the general understanding of php and js, and probably you'd cover 85 - 90% of all codes

ai is getting better and better every month but it still good to know the basics and learn to code so you can understand when the ai does something wrong.

Yes, obviously. AI has made coding faster, but it hasn't removed the need to understand how software works. If you can't read, debug, or improve the code AI generates, you'll hit a wall pretty quickly.

Start to learn python first because it is useful for automation, AI, web development, and scripting.

In my opinion AI makes better website but the bugs in the code it will not solve a developer can identify the bugs and solve them , so I prefer you to learn programming