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Is this sustainable?

jamiehurst.co.uk

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Re: Is this sustainable?

#71

Post by enraged_camel »

thatmf wrote: post #66

> ...this shift advantages people who can build fast with AI tools and disadvantages people who can't. The bias to action is genuine, but it isn't neutral. The engineers who've adopted these tools effectively get heard more often, get their proposals taken seriously more often, and shape direction more than those who haven't. If only this was limited to engineers. I'm seeing this applied to every role across organiza…

>> I'm seeing this applied to every role across organizations. The designer that gets heard is the one who can vibe code the best. Same with strategists, writers (seriously), and other people for whom "coding" is not remotely their expertise or function.

It's not about vibe coding the best, it's about delivering value the fastest. And the value in this case is bringing clarity to the conversation when there are a lot of unknowns. As the article notes, prototypes are great for that. It's much easier to poke and prod at a prototype and use it to explore the problem space than to sit in on a presentation where the slides are just heavily distilled versions of an engineering design doc that is dozens of pages long (and most people will just skim anyway).

Re: Is this sustainable?

#72

Post by esafak »

AI exerts pressure to flatten roles; everybody feels the false confidence to do everything, so companies need to ensure expert oversight, and that shipping means assuming responsibility. If the latter can't be realistically accomplished, shipping should not be allowed. I think a healthy approach is to encourage everybody to create their own POCs with the understanding that only domain experts ship production code.

I still believe in ensuring that contributors understand every line of shipped code. This creates a natural ceiling on the width of their domain; though AI can help them learn more quickly, everyone can't know everything about engineering.

AI does not increase co-ordination costs per se; it increases productivity. You can achieve the same result with fewer people using AI, so it should decrease co-ordination costs. Only when you add AI while keeping the organization constant should co-ordination costs increase.

Re: Is this sustainable?

#73

Post by m0llusk »

In the past bullshitting would only get you so far, but now bullshitting is both pervasive and revered. Contributors who specialize in taking things all the way, getting not just features but entire projects complete and fully functional aren't even in the conversation. What matters is the appearance of speed, not proof of completeness.

Sustainability will be most stretched where the bottom line actually matters. Medical devices and data processing, commercial aviation operations, precision manufacturing, and such. Bullshitting only takes you so far until actually doing the thing and showing that with high confidence becomes the only criterion.

Re: Is this sustainable?

#74

Post by mupuff1234 »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #62
simonw wrote: post #41

This piece is really good: > The cost of building has collapsed, but the cost of aligning organisationally has not. If anything, it's gone up. When three different teams can each produce a working solution to the same problem in the time it used to take to write a proposal, the bottleneck moves from engineering to coordination. We're still figuring out how to productively use coding agents as individuals, the next ch…

I still don't understand why coding agents are silo'd, and chat history is treated as disposable. Everyone on the team should be able to see all conversations and drop in and steer agents at any time, and chat history should be part of organizational memory. I thought labs would have pushed collaborative steering by now, but I guess people got so TUI pilled they haven't even considered the possibility.

What will chat history give you that the output of that chat won't?

Re: Is this sustainable?

#75

Post by cyanydeez »

dijksterhuis wrote: post #33
cyanydeez wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's no anti-ai hype train. It doesn't exist. There'll merely be more and more bots crowding into every space that the only people left will not care. The rest will be out touching grass.

not yet. but given the growing backlash my bet is that at some point linkedin monkeys will eventually all begin posting about the importance of “human centric design” or whatever. at that point there’ll be some money to be made for the supposedly “replaceable” software engineers they’ve been shitting on this whole time. i’m hoping my bet pays off, cos i would like nothing more than to rinse these people for everythin…

its a existential pzombie problem, not a movement against.

Re: Is this sustainable?

#76

Post by coffeefirst »

mpalmer wrote: post #31

Do not bother reading this. The author could have written a rather incisive 800 words on this if he'd really tried. But I will not read 2500 words of redundant, repetitive slop. It's really bad writing. There is no pacing or conclusion to speak of. It's sort of just a loose list alternating between upsides and downsides, punctuated by the usual bullshit list-y ad-copy summations: The build cost collapsed, the alignme…

It's really telling.

> the thinking time disappeared

It did not. The author decided against spending time thinking. Nobody is following him around whacking him on the head if he blocks off tomorrow morning to go heads down on something. At least, I don't think they are?

A tiny bit of project management discipline can go a long way.

Re: Is this sustainable?

#77

Post by willraymer »

> DORA was built for a previous era.

I’m curious where you’re running into limits there. Intuitively, it feels like stuff like change lead time and MTTR is rooted enough in “what is the customer experiencing” that it shouldn’t have been made outdated by AI. But what are you finding?

Re: Is this sustainable?

#78

Post by lstodd »

1dom wrote: post #70
lstodd wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the requirements are self-contradicting while at the same time being non-negotiable their job is to quit.

So we agree on what their job is, but you're saying that if their job becomes impossible, they should quit, and I agree. Do you think the author of the original article should have quit, rather than tried?

Early 2024 being assigned to "GenAI DX"? I would have interpreted that as being politely shown the door and quit at the spot.

Re: Is this sustainable?

#79

Post by bot403 »

esafak wrote: post #60
simonw wrote: post #41

This piece is really good: > The cost of building has collapsed, but the cost of aligning organisationally has not. If anything, it's gone up. When three different teams can each produce a working solution to the same problem in the time it used to take to write a proposal, the bottleneck moves from engineering to coordination. We're still figuring out how to productively use coding agents as individuals, the next ch…

Different teams could already step on each others' toes before AI. If there is confusion over which team ought to develop something it might indicate an organizational problem. Crucially, if you ship something you must be willing to maintain it.

I don't think the author would dispute that. But the problem is the foot is bigger and the stepping is faster.

Re: Is this sustainable?

#80

Post by sheept »

mupuff1234 wrote: post #74
CuriouslyC wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand why coding agents are silo'd, and chat history is treated as disposable. Everyone on the team should be able to see all conversations and drop in and steer agents at any time, and chat history should be part of organizational memory. I thought labs would have pushed collaborative steering by now, but I guess people got so TUI pilled they haven't even considered the possibility.

What will chat history give you that the output of that chat won't?

Context? Without it, it would be like starting a new session for each follow-up prompt
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