Not so locked in any more

Simon Willison · Simon Willison · 2026-05-14

Simon Willison argues that AI coding agents are eliminating programming language lock-in, illustrating the point with an anecdote about a tech company that rewrote native iOS and Android apps to React Native using coding agents, comfortable in the knowledge that any wrong choice could be cheaply reversed.

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Appears in

AI Coding Agents Restructuring Software Development Economics

Extraction

Topics: ai-assisted-programmingcoding-agentsprogramming-language-lock-inreact-native

Claims

A medium-sized technology company used coding agents to rewrite both its iOS and Android apps as a React Native codebase.
The company chose React Native partly because coding agents make reverting to native code a low-cost option if the decision proves wrong.
Coding agents are collapsing the switching costs between technology stacks, making language and framework selection more reversible.
Programming languages are no longer a meaningful source of vendor or technology lock-in.

Key quotes

Programming languages used to be LOCK IN, and they're increasingly not so.