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Comment by ezst

12 hours ago

Now we do computing like we play Sim City: sketching fuzzy plans and hoping those little creatures behave the way we thought they might. All the beauty and guarantees offered by a system obeying strict and predictable rules goes down the drain, because life's so boring, apparently.

I think it's Darwinian logic in action. In most areas of software, perfection or near-perfection are not required, and as a result software creators are more likely to make money if they ship something that is 80% perfect now than if they ship something that is 99% perfect 6 months from now.

I think this is also the reason why the methodology typically named or mis-named "Agile", which can be described as just-in-time assembly line software manufacturing, has become so prevalent.

The difference is that it's not a toy. I'd rather compare it to the early days of offshore development, when remote teams were sooo attractive because they cost 20% of an onshore team for a comparable declared capability, but the predictability and mutual understanding proved to be... not as easy.

It’s like coders (and now their agents) are re-creating biology. As a former software engineer who changed careers to biology, it’s kind of cool to see this! There is an inherent fuzziness to biological life, and now AI is also becoming increasingly fuzzy. We are living in a truly amazing time. I don’t know what the future holds, but to be at this point in history and to experience this, it’s quite something.