Comment by theshrike79
13 hours ago
> Don't forget that very very detailed spec is actually the code
In the age of AI this is more true than you know. Given a detailed enough spec and test suite you can effectively rewrite any application with any language in a fully automated way.
I've coined that as "Duck coding" :D If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck and looks like a duck - it's duck enough for as far as the spec is concerned. Does it matter what is inside the duck?
Yes. It would be like buying a car that you have no idea about the engine and gearbox and kind of fuel it is using or if at all. It have four wheels and and it can drive you from point A to B. Sure but sometimes it happens that some particular brands and they particular model requires engine renovation after 100k km because it is so shitty design.
Right now we are just starting vibe coded software, nobody knows how it will behave in 2 years or 5 or 10. My guess it won't. So we will enter age of scratch software. You build it, ship it. And after few months you will ship entirely new one. And then again. And again. And again. Because maintenance is hard and costly and writing from scratch will cost like 1k$ in tokens.
And users will have problem of migrating the data if possible at all. But if migration is hard and everything changes all the time does it even matter if you are using X o Y software? Does it even matter since you can write your own software and migrate your data there?
I think we saw how this ends with Chinese manufacturing. You buy some stuff from AliExpress for 2$ and throw it away in two weeks and buy a new one. So quality does not matter anymore.
The problem is that you cannot just throw away your data.
I am talking about applications like to do lists. Or you running app. Or I do not know... Currency exchange calculator. People do not care about that data. Ordinary person maybe would be a bit sad about loosing emails but not terribly. Maybe half of people would be trying to get their picture back rest would just say 'oh well...' And moved on.
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People are so focused on code they forget that the actual values is data. We create software to transform data from what we have to what we want. A software that can’t do it or, worse, corrupt the data, is worthless.