With a 200k token window like Claude has you can already dump a lot of design docs / transcripts / etc. at it.
If you use cline with any large context model the results can be pretty amazing. It's not close to self guiding, You still need to break down and analyze the problem and provide clear and relevant instructions. IE you need to be a great architect. Once you are stable on the direction, its awe inspiring to watch it do the bulk if the implementation.
I do agree that there is space to improve over embedded chat windows in IDEs. Solutions will come in time.
By the way, remind me why you need design meetings in that ideal world?:)
> Real projects don't require an infinitely detailed specification either, you usually stop where it no longer meaningfully moves you towards the goal.
The point was that specification is not detailed enough in practice. Precise enough specification IS code. And the point is literally that natural language is just not made to be precise enough. So you are back where you started
So you waste time explaining in detail and rehashing requirements in this imprecise language until you see what code you want to see. Which was faster to just... idk.. type.
Real projects don't require an infinitely detailed specification either, you usually stop where it no longer meaningfully moves you towards the goal.
The whole premise of AI developer automation, IMO, is that if a human can develop a thing, then AI should be able too, given the same input.