Re:Where I'm at with AI
by Normal_gaussian on Friday January 30, 2026 @12:40PM
(#46827335)
This is one of the key elements that will shift the SWE discipline. We will move to more explicitly editing systems by their footprint and guarantees, and verifying that what exists matches those.
Re:Where I'm at with AI
by datsci_est_2015 on Friday January 30, 2026 @02:39PM
(#46828892)
“Editing systems” will remain being a rigid and formal process, though. The discipline won’t become softer and more easily understood (SWEs are going to be replaced!), if anything it will become harder and less easily understood.
Shareholders don’t want a “release” button that when they press it there’s a XX% chance that the entire software stack collapses because an increasingly complex piece of software is understood by no one but a black box called “AI” that can’t be fired or otherwise held accountable.
Re:Where I'm at with AI
by sjsizjhaha on Friday January 30, 2026 @01:02PM
(#46827669)
The corollary here is there’s 2 cases here:
1. You know exactly what the code should look like ahead of time. Agents are handy here, but this is rare and takes no time at all as is
2. You don’t know exactly what it should be. Building the mental model by hand is faster than working backwards from finished work. Agents help with speeding up your knowledge here, but having them build the model is not good
Code review is and always was the bottle neck. You are doing code review when you write code.
As long as code continues to need to be reviewed to (mostly) maintain a chain of liability, I don’t see SWE going anywhere like both hypebros and doomers seem to be intent on posting about.
Code review will simply become the bottle neck for SWE. In other words, reading and understanding code so that when SHTF the shareholders know who to hold accountable.