Comment by jqpabc123
6 hours ago
Why are good developers so wary of agentic development?
Perhaps because agentic development is aimed at replacing "good developers".
Agentic development tends to undermine the very process that creates "good developers".
Agentic development will do to software what off-shoring did to manufacturing.
Nah, good developers are wary of agentic development because they have a high degree of understanding and intentionality for their designs. And they see how it easily becomes a crutch for a lack of understanding or intentionality.
> Agentic development will do to software what off-shoring did to manufacturing.
Agentic development will do to software what off-shoring did to software development.
And they see how it easily becomes a crutch for a lack of understanding or intentionality.
In other words, it "tends to undermine the very process that creates good developers".
Indeed, I think skills are like muscles... you need to keep using them well to stay strong. If you farm out all your thinking to an AI, your own skills and knowledge will diminish and your ability to design/debug/reason about your own (or any) code can fade.
as has happened time and again through history. software development skills will fade as models become genuinely better at creating, designing, architecting, engineering, testing, validating code at the level of fully complete products.
There will still be the need for humans in the loop to make sure the final product is suitable and what the humans genuinely wanted. We'll all become QA / Acceptance testers. For a little while , that will go away in the end too I think. software will become nothing more special than every day household objects.
Making a custom household object requires time, effort, and expense. Especially if you want it to be nice.
A lot of DIY AI software is going to be the equivalent of home built workshop / shed furniture: it works fine, but it is janky and built from whatever they had at the hardware store. There will be a place for professional assemblers and designers and engineers at the furniture store / factories.
3 replies →