Why Software Factories Fail (or: harness engineering is not enough)

Post by davidgl » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 7:38 AM UTC

tmikaeld wrote: post #186

bandrami wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> few users, no revenue or minimal revenue The 900 pound gorilla has for a while been "where is all the output of these LLMs?", and this seems to be the answer; the number of apps on the various app stores has skyrocketed over the past two quarters but installs overall are actually down a little bit. So it seems like we've had an explosion of software that one or two people use. Which is a cool situation to think abo…

Marketing was a problem with apps even before AI, which, with today’s slopforests makes it even harder for consumers to see any of your trees even if they wanted to.

Post by human807 » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 7:44 AM UTC

dhorthy wrote: post #69

mrbnprck wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't maintainability mostly about applying basic engineering principles e.g. separation of concerns, single responsibility, dependency inversion, open-closed etc..? If these topics are addressed in the normative representation, and correctly translated by an LLM into code (especially by slicing up the specifications into measurable outcomes to set the intended foundation), then future change e.g. maintainability bec…

> Historically I know that the majority maintenance problems occur from slow continuous evolution of a system that it initially was never designed for. And the only way to address this was continuous system design. yes exactly - this is what I'm advocating for - that you can't skip the system design, and that actually good system design goes down to the typedefs and object graph at the code level, not just mermaid ch…

Post by swiftcoder » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 7:49 AM UTC

taneq wrote: post #179

andrewljohnson wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You either need to quit or keep your head down, I can’t tell which.

If you need to actively keep your head down, you need to quit. Doesn’t matter whether ‘the problem’ is the employer, the employee, both, or neither. They’re a bad fit for each other.

Post by swiftcoder » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 7:51 AM UTC

janalsncm wrote: post #147

Either you need to understand how your codebase works or you don’t. Claude can write the code for you but it can’t understand it for you. That part has to happen at human speeds. There are cases where you don’t have to understand everything, but I think that’s a more nuanced question. All of the above is true even if Claude writes perfect code.

Post by Archer6621 » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 7:58 AM UTC

antonvs wrote: post #196

d_silin wrote: post #38

My radical opinion is that LLMs are harmful for software development - they are the ultimate "goto" operator. All actual code should be written by a human developer. Instead, use them in adversarial mode - run QA scenarios using LLM agent as a substitute for end user to do bug discovery.

> All actual code should be written by a human developer. This seems arbitrary. Why don’t you say the same thing about machine code? Developers use tools so they can avoid writing machine code. What is causing you to draw a line in the sand about use of tools? The obvious answer is it’s just a function of the time period you grew up in, and a lack of willingness to adapt to change.