I wanted to share my experience with code generation tools over the years.

This isn’t a new issue. I’ve been burned by automated software products that I’ve given up on using them for major code generation. It’s horrible to do exactly like what the tools say and end up with the wrong product. The problem is that you’ll never win over someone that believes in what the media keeps pounding in their heads. What is the media pounding into heads right now? The financial media is screaming how AI, oops, I mean SI, are going to completely change software development. Unfortunately, these are the latest iteration of tools that are going to solve all development problems.
A few years ago, I got brought in to try to figure out why a company’s main product was failing. They had run it through a code converter, never tested the output, and just thrown it into production. I spent a week trying to explain this to the person incharge of development, and he couldn’t grok what I was saying. He got all hung up on “you aren’t in a big enough company for me to sue so I can’t use you.” So, they went and staffed up with a bigger company, never got something that worked, and went bankrupt.

I’ve tried to use multiple automated code generators throughout my career, and they have never worked to my satisfaction or to the customer’s satisfaction. They make great demos, they really do. The problem is that they never solve the problem of the last 20-25%. As I often say, the first 90% of development, is 90% of the work, the last 10% is the next 90% of the work.

It takes experience to know the tools to use and the tools not to use. The problem with software development is that everyone thinks it is easy who isn’t in it. I’ve seen dbas fuck up projects. I’ve seen graphics designers think they are developers and fuck up projects. The problem is that the customer doesn’t really know what is going on until there is a problem. They aren’t equipped to understand the problem. The customer falls into the idea that just a little more will solve things. I call this the Stockholm syndrome of software. No, code generators in all of its forms is the problem. If you want to get better at software, improve your skills. The customer (who is a VP or otherwise has budget approvals) believes the sales job put forward by somebody selling their system. The sunk cost of bad software is a sunk cost, let it go.

Can ai work and help development? Absolutely, but you have to know what you are doing beforehand. You have to hunt and peck for the right thing. If you look at the amount of time that is used to do development, it is actually really small now. The majority of time is spent on figuring out out what to do, not how to do it any more.