Comment by jordanscales
18 days ago
The inspired me to write down some scattered thoughts I have on this [0]. tl;dr I firmly believe we kicked the can down the road and now it's too late.
Things programmers forgot to do before AI started writing a bunch of software:
1. Learn how to review code
Some tools exist, some of them are even quite good! Large organizations have tried to build best practices to balance urgency with correctness, but programmers are still quite bad at this.
2. Compare program A vs program B
In a similar vein, we simply do not know how to measure one program vs another. Or a function against another. Or even one variableName vs another_variable_name.
"It depends" Depends on what? We never sorted this out.
3. Talk to other professions
We are not the first profession forced to coordinate with Automation as a coworker, and we certainly won't be the last. We're not even the first knowledge workers to do so.
How did other laborers deal with this? We don't know because we were busy making websites.
[0]: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:wh7bie3ld7bmg3cz76sbjkwj/po...
Software was never governed by a single standard. It has always been closer to architecture or design, with competing schools judging quality differently. AI tools do not remove judgment; they make it unavoidable. I sit in a minimalist, almost brutalist school: fewer layers, obvious structure, and software that delivers results even if it is not fashionable.