The role of developer skills in agentic coding

Generative AI and particularly LLMs (Large Language Models) have exploded into the public consciousness. Like many software developers I am intrigued by the possibilities, but unsure what exactly it will mean for our profession in the long run. I have now taken on a role in Thoughtworks to coordinate our work on how this technology will affect software delivery practices. I'll be posting various memos here to describe what my colleagues and I are learning and thinking. I’m personally not quite sure yet if reasoning models are really as big of a game changer for software development tasks as they are made out to be. Apart from being slow and expensive, the models have the potential limitations outlined above, and in my various attempts at using them for coding or debugging issues, I haven’t found a case yet where o1 gave me noticeably better results than Claude-Sonnet-3.5 in an IDE with good AI context orchestration. Are these findings setting a glass ceiling for the size and difficul ... Read full article.