The role of the developer is and will be changing, fast. AI is not ignorable.

I still don't want to write a book about AI itself. It's isn't and won't be my area of expertise.

But I'm endlessly fascinated by how we work as developers, the "people and processes" parts. How can we move towards "better value sooner safer happier" (BVSSH) as Jon Smart says in Sooner Safer Happier.

Because who wants bad worthless late dangerous and miserable?

Here's my prediction, which I'm sure you'll find truly earth-shattering: some things about life as a developer will change, and some will remain the same.

I know! Pretty daring prediction. But hear me out.

What's changing

AI will drive

Code will be written at least with the assistance of AI. Probably, eventually, mostly... code will be written entirely by AI.

We're in no position to be handing over the keys to AI and having it write, test, and deploy code without human intervention. At least for most businesses.

But AI writing, testing, and deploying code with some amount of human intervention, that's where we're headed.

At first, I didn't want to hear this, as a developer. I loved writing code. I resisted going to management partly because I always wanted my hands in the code. It was fascinating.

But as time went on, coding got... more tedious. It had stopped feeling like problem solving, like creating, like magic. It had started feeling like I do the fun thing for 10 minutes and then spend three days trying to figure out what combination of packages and setup were needed to make it just work already.

Ideas get bigger

We'll be able to dream bigger. Stuff we used to write off as unimaginable will be imaginable. Projects we didn't have time for will be feasible. There will be new use cases.

Teams will change

Here are my predictions:

Cross-functional teams will be the norm. If you're not already working in one, you will be.

Teams will get smaller - fewer developers.

Barriers between IT and "the business" will dissolve at least somewhat. What used to be "shadow IT" could now be embedded IT. You don't have to go ask another org for things, you have people on your tea who help you get stuff done.

New dangers

AI does things we don't understand and behaves in ways we're, at best, terrible at predicting, if we can even predict them at all.

That has the potential to be very dangerous.

AI itself is also changing very quickly. Coding tools that were "in" six months ago are starting to look quaint. That makes it hard to keep up with.

Unfortunately, some of the people most dedicated to keeping up with change are what the security folks call "bad actors." Not because they were in some B movie and were not believable in delivering their lines. People with malicious intent. We'll need people who can keep up.

New developers

People who weren't developers before will build things. I have some simple instructions towards the end of this newsletter, if you want to try something easy.

Those people are going to need help, guidance, and kindness.

I keep imagining this conversation:

Hopefully the developer doesn't abandon the manager there out of spite! We'll need developers who can guide people, with kindness.

What isn't changing and in fact we should be doubling down on it

People still matter

What makes us human? A bigger topic than this humble newsletter will tackle.

Also, can we mess up AI so badly that it takes over and destroys humanity? Scary, and also a bigger topic than I'll tackle here. I'm just a developer. :)

But I'm going to assert that being human not only still matters, but it matters more than ever that we are the best humans we can be.

AI will, by and large, be what we teach it to be, and do what we train it to do. Not exactly - nondeterministic and all - but if it goes some kind of way then that's because we, as humans, nudged it that way.

Relating to each other is important

Working together, sharing information, helping each other out, giving each other grace.

The pace of change is going to be scary for a lot of us. Let's help each other navigate.

BVSSH still matters

"Better value sooner safer happier" is still a great objective. My own words for it:

• Better - higher quality
• Value - worthwhile, useful, building the right thing
• Sooner - no need to be so sluggish in getting there
• Safer - minimizing risks of all sorts
• Happier - for the user, the developer, the company, the planet

I used to use the phrase "better value sooner safer happier" at work to sum up the purpose of the SDLC. It didn't catch on, but I still think everything we do boils down to one of those five.

Requirements? Value. QA? Better, and Safer. Automated deployment? Sooner, Safer, Happier.

Wellbeing (still) matters

André Martin says he would like to see a company that can promise employees: "work here and you'll be healthier." Imagine that...

Wellbeing is part of "happier" but I want to call it out specifically. One thing I heard several times at ETLS: people were staying up late coding, again. That's both exciting and worrisome.

How will the changes at work affect our mental health and physical health? This seems like something we should keep an eye on and be ready to address.

How does all of this affect the book?

Before, I wanted to write primarily from my own experience. But just in the past week, I've started turning my thoughts towards research.

I'm no doctoral candidate or university professor. But I could definitely reach out to some business leaders, do some interviews, and write up the results. I have contacts...

A lot of my advice is still relevant, but I also want to tune into the latest thinking about what's coming up.

Do you know people who are already thinking about the "people" aspects of AI in the role of the developer? Feel free to send me pointers to writing or people, introductions, ideas.

Advice for the developers

Junior developers, I don't think I need to tell you to check out AI, because by all the reports I've heard, you're already diving in. You know this is going to be part of your world.

Senior developers... you're a more mixed lot. Curious, skeptical, hopeful, disillusioned. Scared.

Maybe...

• You've tried one of the early tools, and you were unimpressed.
• Your "they're going to lay everyone off" sense is tingling. You don't want to do anything that helps your management find a way to get rid of developers.
• Perhaps, like me, you've landed in a comfortable place as an expert. And this AI stuff makes you feel like a confused novice again.
• You hear terms like LLM and MCP and RAG and you're thinking... ugh. I don't have the energy for this anymore. Maybe I can make it to retirement before this becomes something I have to learn.
• You love the craft of coding, and you see the potential for AI to dump trash code all over something you've worked hard to keep clean. Like someone building a shopping mall in your favorite park.
• You have concerns about what we call NFRs, non-functional requirements: security, stability, maintainability, extendability.

You're not wrong about any of that.

The early tools were unimpressive. Some execs are keen on cutting costs. Being an expert is fun. Learning a new landscape takes a lot of work. Coding is a beautiful craft, when done well. And we do need to be careful not to rush to ship something with AI that doesn't meet our standards.

But AI is coming, possibly faster than many organizations will adapt.

What if you just learned to do the parts that are fun? Ignore the terminology for now. Just build a thing. Like you did when you first started coding.

Try this...

Fun with AI

Developer or not, here's a simple vibe coding exercise. Feel free to try this out. (I can't promise that you won't have to sign up for an account or something.)

Ask your favorite AI to code something. If you don't have a favorite AI, here are two popular ones:

​https://chatgpt.com/​

​https://claude.ai/​

Here's a nice thing to ask for, courtesy of Gene Kim and Steve Yegge:

That's it... just paste that prompt in the text box and let it do some processing. For ChatGPT, when it's done, you may need to hit Preview to see the results.

Boom, you're now an AI-powered developer.

Can you think of an enhancement to this application? You can ask for that. Want the ball to change color when you click?

What else could you ask it to create?

Poll

Drop me a note

I would love to hear from you. Hit reply and let me know what's on your mind.

I just ordered stickers with this cutie:

This newsletter is approximately weekly. In addition, I post to my blog on my website, which also appears on Medium and Substack.

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​Beyond Writing Code is a newsletter from Leaf (Jessica Roy).

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