Complete agree. It’s a core skill of a good developer. What’s interesting is that in the past I’d have started this process but then jumped into coding prematurely. Now when you know you are using an agent, the more you write, the better the results.
Yes but let's not forget the lessons of waterfall planning. You can't anticipate everything, so the detail level of the implementation plan should be within a goldi locks zone of detailed but not too detailed, and after each implementation and test phase one should feel comfortable adjusting the spec/plan to the current state of things.
Another good point. I noticed this happening while writing my document.
A few times while writing the doc I had to go back and update the previous steps to add missing features.
Also I knew when to stop. It’s not fully finished yet. There are additional stages I need to implement. But as an experienced developer, I knew when I had enough for “core functionalty” that was well defined.
What worries me is how do you become a good developer if AI is writing it all?
One of my strengths as a developer is understanding the problem and breaking it down into steps, creating requirements documents like I’ve discussed.
But that’s a hard-earned skill from years of client work where I wrote the code. I have a huge step up in getting the most from these agents now.
The downside of waterfall was not overly detailed specs. In fact, the best software development is universally waterfall following a good, ideally formal spec.
The downside that Agile sought to remedy was inflexibility, which is an issue greatly ameliorated by coding agents.
Maybe if you know the entire possibility space beforehand, in which case that's a great position to be in. In other cases and if the spec doesn't align with reality after implementation has begun or unforseen issues pop up, the spec needs revision, does it not?
> In other cases and if the spec doesn't align with reality after implementation has begun or unforeseen issues pop up, the spec needs revision, does it not?
Yes and then it gets pumped back to the top of the waterfall and goes through the entire process. Many organizations became so rigid that this was a problem. It is what Tom Smykowski in office space is a parody of. It's why you get much of the early web having things like the "feature creep" and "if web designers were architects".
Waterfall failed because of politics mingled into the process, it was the worst sort of design by committee. If you want a sense of how this plays out you simply have to look at Wayland development. The fact that is has been as successful as it is, is a testament to the will and patience of those involved.
