> Isn't this true of any greenfield project?
That is a good point and true to some extent. But IME with AI, both the initial speedup and the eventual slowdown are accelerated vs. a human.
I've been thinking that one reason is that while AI coding generates code far faster (on a greenfield project I estimate about 50x), it also generates tech-debt at a hyperastonishing rate.
It used to be that tech debt started to catch up with teams in a few years, but with AI coded software it's only a few months into it that tech debt is so massive that it is slowing progress down.
I also find that I can keep the tech debt in check by using the bot only as a junior engineer, where I specify precisely the architecture and the design down to object and function definitions and I only let the bot write individual functions at a time.
That is much slower, but also much more sustainable. I'd estimate my productivity gains are "only" 2x to 3x (instead of ~50x) but tech debt accumulates no faster than a purely human-coded project.
This is based on various projects only about one year into it, so time will tell how it evolves longer term.
That is a good point and true to some extent. But IME with AI, both the initial speedup and the eventual slowdown are accelerated vs. a human.
I've been thinking that one reason is that while AI coding generates code far faster (on a greenfield project I estimate about 50x), it also generates tech-debt at a hyperastonishing rate.
It used to be that tech debt started to catch up with teams in a few years, but with AI coded software it's only a few months into it that tech debt is so massive that it is slowing progress down.
I also find that I can keep the tech debt in check by using the bot only as a junior engineer, where I specify precisely the architecture and the design down to object and function definitions and I only let the bot write individual functions at a time.
That is much slower, but also much more sustainable. I'd estimate my productivity gains are "only" 2x to 3x (instead of ~50x) but tech debt accumulates no faster than a purely human-coded project.
This is based on various projects only about one year into it, so time will tell how it evolves longer term.