Scaffolded LLMs are pretty good at not just writing code, but also at refactoring it. So that means that all the tech debt in the world will disappear soon, right?
I predict “no” because
As writing code gets cheaper, the relative cost of making sure that a refactor didn’t break anything important goes up
The number of parallel threads of software development will also go up, with multiple high-value projects making mutually-incompatible assumptions (and interoperability between these projects accomplished by just piling on more code).
As such, I predict an explosion of software complexity and jank in the near future.
Scaffolded LLMs are pretty good at not just writing code, but also at refactoring it. So that means that all the tech debt in the world will disappear soon, right?
I predict “no” because
As writing code gets cheaper, the relative cost of making sure that a refactor didn’t break anything important goes up
The number of parallel threads of software development will also go up, with multiple high-value projects making mutually-incompatible assumptions (and interoperability between these projects accomplished by just piling on more code).
As such, I predict an explosion of software complexity and jank in the near future.