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points by jqpabc123 17 hours ago | 0 comments

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.

[–] jqpabc123 14 hours ago

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".

[–] majorchord 16 hours ago

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.

[–] alienbaby 16 hours ago

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.

[–] datadrivenangel 15 hours ago

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.

[–] majorchord 15 hours ago

Is there a reason you seem to believe this "jank" in the AI software world will stay the same forever? The policies, testing and general knowledge of the professionals are part of what's training the AI models... accurately passing all necessary software standards/certifications/policies are just a few (near future) prompts away.

[–] jqpabc123 15 hours ago

The policies, testing and general knowledge of the professionals are part of what's training the AI models

Catch 22 --- The "professionals" need to be replaced in order to justify the cost of AI.

Once this done, where will the general knowledge to train AI come from?

AI is a self degrading feedback loop.

[–] majorchord 12 hours ago

> Once this done, where will the general knowledge to train AI come from?

I think this assumes that all professionals will eventually disappear and be replaced entirely with AI, and I don't agree with that.

The existence of AI does not dictate that developers can or will no longer exist (and not everyone will even use AI). I think we will still have enough data to train from... and if not, then the AI simply won't be used for that and people will learn again the old fashioned way.