Automation

Boris Tane argues in The Software Development Lifecycle is Dead that AI agents have collapsed the traditional staged software development lifecycle (SDLC) into a single intent-build-observe loop, and that the classic lifecycle is dead. The tinkerer in me who spent the weekend experimenting with OpenCode and GitHub Copilot wants to believe. But most systems that matter store state. And the former DBA in me is not convinced we are ready for a fully collapsed lifecycle. ...

The recent explosion of GenAI got me thinking about the older code generation tools I’ve worked with. The appeal is the same as it’s always been: get more done, reduce the toil. That’s all goodness, but it can be used to “solve” the wrong problems too. Problems you could remove and not need to fix. We have had code generation for decades; it’s a side effect of being able to generate output programmatically. Sometimes it’s useful, but sometimes it just masks problems. ...