This is why I find the idea of the fully automated software factory a little questionable.
It is only through writing the code that I know what code to write. I do find it a productivity boost to have an LLM do the donkey work for me but I still need to read the code and think about it to know what to do next.
I mostly agree with the article but I would just say taste is just expertise and there's no need to pinpoint some unique feature of it. Expertise gives you skills to guide AI because AI doesn't have expertise, it has knowledge. AI cannot experience things, or even learn by doing, so it just has baked in information.
I fully agree with the sentiment though. SWE has been greatly underestimated in the industry almost to the point it is treated like a design or art role. With AI the role is shifting even more to do almost every other role from product ownership to management. It's crazy how much people do not care for reliable and consistent software, something you would never see in other engineering fields because they will usually have catastrophic consequences IRL.
This is why I find the idea of the fully automated software factory a little questionable.
It is only through writing the code that I know what code to write. I do find it a productivity boost to have an LLM do the donkey work for me but I still need to read the code and think about it to know what to do next.
I mostly agree with the article but I would just say taste is just expertise and there's no need to pinpoint some unique feature of it. Expertise gives you skills to guide AI because AI doesn't have expertise, it has knowledge. AI cannot experience things, or even learn by doing, so it just has baked in information.
I fully agree with the sentiment though. SWE has been greatly underestimated in the industry almost to the point it is treated like a design or art role. With AI the role is shifting even more to do almost every other role from product ownership to management. It's crazy how much people do not care for reliable and consistent software, something you would never see in other engineering fields because they will usually have catastrophic consequences IRL.