One of the most important papers in software engineering, which I believe everyone in this profession should read and internalize.
Every time I see another startup trying use LLMs for code generation I sigh in despair. As AI technology improves and becomes better at producing code, what looks like a win in the short term will end up creating more and more code that has been created without a human going through the necessary thought processes and problem solving steps to build the theory of the software as described in this paper.
It's also why its critically important for companies to do what they can to retain the people who built the software in the first place, or at least ensure there's enough continuity as new people join the team so they can build their mental model by working alongside the original developers.
Every time I see another startup trying use LLMs for code generation I sigh in despair. As AI technology improves and becomes better at producing code, what looks like a win in the short term will end up creating more and more code that has been created without a human going through the necessary thought processes and problem solving steps to build the theory of the software as described in this paper.
It's also why its critically important for companies to do what they can to retain the people who built the software in the first place, or at least ensure there's enough continuity as new people join the team so they can build their mental model by working alongside the original developers.