How AI Coding Assistants Are Changing Software Development Economics
By
swolpers
Toasted to a respectable shade. No regrets, no crumbs left.
Summary
The article discusses how the advent of AI coding assistants has fundamentally changed software development economics by making code writing cheap, which challenges traditional engineering practices built around expensive coding time. It explores how this shift requires rethinking engineering habits, project planning, and design patterns to embrace agentic engineering approaches where code generation is fast and inexpensive.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledThe biggest challenge in adopting agentic engineering practices is getting comfortable with the consequences of the fact that writing code is cheap now.
Code has always been expensive. Producing a few hundred lines of clean, tested code takes most software developers a full day or more.
Many of our engineering habits, at both the macro and micro level, are built around this core constraint.
At the macro level we spend a great deal of time designing, estimating and planning out projects, to ensure that our expensive coding time is spent as efficiently as possible.
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