Developers, try harder!
There is a race going on, and us developers are losing.
Product managers are experimenting with low code, producing prototypes, validating ideas with application generators.
And us developers are sitting on our hands, thinking we will remain irreplacable forever.
❌ "Real use cases are too complex"
❌ "Where's the CI/CD pipeline?"
❌ "This will never achieve maturity"
❌ "And, lol, look how ChatGPT can't even count correctly"
If that is you, you better make up your mind.
AI will change coding forever. In particular, it will disrupt or has already disrupted how ideas are translated into functionality — which is what programming is about.
Yes, I know you are using Copilot for code completion, because we are lazy and always have been.
Is "using the tools" really enough?
Own it!
This could be the rebirth of verifiable software, yet nobody is talking about it.
Or what about property based testing to force the spec to do what it promises?
Merely mapping requirements to behaviour won't do much longer.
I often hear the analogy that #VibeCoding to generated high level code is like written high level code is to machine language.
That is wrong!
Compiling is a reduction. Information is lost in the process, such as meaningful variable or class names, or comments.
When turning spec to code, on the other hand, a lot of information is added, such as naming conventions, choice of frameworks, etc.
I am not opposing the beneficial hallucination. Not at all.
All I am saying is that intent needs interpretation, and interpretation is dependent on the culture captured in the LLM. It is a nondeterministic process, inherently fragile.