Kiro's 3-document system is similar to your 4-document one, and it looks like they are all converging into some standard software engineering practice. And, the Mythical Man-month is still valid—communication matters the most, except it is not man-man, but man-agent and agent-agent, or, how to construct the context for communication between agents or across turns.
It's absolute chaos... and (for now) I kind of like it because it's giving all the hyper-opinionated people who like talking about programming in absolutes a run for their money :)
In my experience this type of activity really resembles a mixture of functional and technical requirements written by an analist for a dev team in a software development agency. The team has different skills (also highly specialised) but knows very little about the project. Even the hallucinations of some interactions with these systems reminds me of incomplete specification given to high skilled developers that filled the missing parts with their own experience.
I've been coding for long enough to remember when we carved HTML tables by hand. When CSS was a suggestion, not a lifestyle. When JavaScript was for mouseover effects and nothing else.
Each era, we abstracted away the previous era's work. Assembly to C. C to Java. Java to Ruby. All the way up to "I describe what I want and it appears."
Thank you so much for this. You are so right that we have not yet developed mental models for WTF the nature of this work is. Shit is so fundamentally different that I'm watching with awe as 90% of the tech people I know turn into Luddites.
The problem is that because you are putting in so little effort... eventually the market will recognise this and pay you in kind (ie peanuts)... what's left? stacking shelves, digging ditches. I hope you like your new future.
This was equal parts therapy and entertainment. Thank you
Ditto
Exactly my sentiment.
Kiro's 3-document system is similar to your 4-document one, and it looks like they are all converging into some standard software engineering practice. And, the Mythical Man-month is still valid—communication matters the most, except it is not man-man, but man-agent and agent-agent, or, how to construct the context for communication between agents or across turns.
It's absolute chaos... and (for now) I kind of like it because it's giving all the hyper-opinionated people who like talking about programming in absolutes a run for their money :)
Great write up that puts into words how I have been feeling about my current “process”
What a wonderful read that perfectly encapsulates a lot of how I feel building right now 👏 thanks!
This reads so romantic
I agree with every word. Great article.
In my experience this type of activity really resembles a mixture of functional and technical requirements written by an analist for a dev team in a software development agency. The team has different skills (also highly specialised) but knows very little about the project. Even the hallucinations of some interactions with these systems reminds me of incomplete specification given to high skilled developers that filled the missing parts with their own experience.
Brilliantly said!
Are you using the code generated by AI for MVP or the product?
For basically everything at this point
You caught me here..
---
I've been coding for long enough to remember when we carved HTML tables by hand. When CSS was a suggestion, not a lifestyle. When JavaScript was for mouseover effects and nothing else.
Each era, we abstracted away the previous era's work. Assembly to C. C to Java. Java to Ruby. All the way up to "I describe what I want and it appears."
Thank you so much for this. You are so right that we have not yet developed mental models for WTF the nature of this work is. Shit is so fundamentally different that I'm watching with awe as 90% of the tech people I know turn into Luddites.
Great stuff. Keep up the good work.
nail on the head my guy
The problem is that because you are putting in so little effort... eventually the market will recognise this and pay you in kind (ie peanuts)... what's left? stacking shelves, digging ditches. I hope you like your new future.
"It breaks every mental model I have about how work should feel."
as work is a relatively recent invention, it will be hard to unlearn by many.
Yeah I think that’s why there’s so much resistance to these things. It’s really disorienting when it works and you see how well it can work
A recent innovation??
I’ve been thinking about why building with AI feels broken. I think it’s the structure itself: threads aren’t memory.
Wrote about it here if anyone else is thinking the same:
https://medium.com/@morrishm/why-threads-break-llm-projects-19a8baff2be4