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Most people employing programmers fundamentally do not understand the assignment. Here's the truth:
"Programming is building a mental model. It is not mechanical code production. The shared mental… | Lincoln Russell
Most people employing programmers fundamentally do not understand the assignment. Here's the truth: "Programming is building a mental model. It is not mechanical code production. The shared mental model in developers' minds is the real product. A program is "living" only while the team understands this theory. When programmers leave, it becomes "dead". Without the original theory, new maintainers treat software as a black box, creating patchwork fixes that cause side effects and architectural decay." -Peter Naur, "Programming as Theory Building" (1985) This is NOT to say that programming is a precious artisanal craft. It's just the brass tacks of how it works on every team in every business. Generating code has never been, and will never be, a bottleneck. If you are paying a premium to folks for generating more code faster, you are being swindled. There is no such thing as an "AI-first" high-performance software team, and the reason is simple: Building such a team has far less to do with specific tools & individual code writing than team-building and collective understanding. The latter is a much harder problem. I am fed up with the ruse. GenAI produces universally low-quality results and the folks lining up to excuse it, gaslight you for "doing it wrong", and make bold vaporware promises are insufferable. But the worst part? It's a wrecking ball for comprehension and retention. I've read the studies, and I read a new essay of regrets near-daily. It is a slot machine for technologists who believe they're too clever to have a gambling problem. Then one awful day they finally connect the dots. Being embarrassed about getting swindled won't stop the damage, only action does. It's never too late, but it does keep getting exponentially more expensive the longer you wait to face the music. I've only been a professional programmer for 20 years, but I've been building teams for 30. Got a software team that needs (re)building? I'm available. Let's talk.
