Fundamental knowledge matters more than ever
09 Sep 2026
Today, I came across a very useful video about modern development with AI by Matt Pocock. The main ideas are below.
🧪 Development and AI
In an ideal world, we write a spec and then implement it in code. Voilà , everyone's happy!
In reality, we write the spec, AI generates code, then AI generates worse code, then even worse code, and then - complete garbage.
The main reason for this is complexity. But what is complexity?
 Complexity is everything related to the structure of a system that makes it hard to understand and modify the system. (c) John Ousterhaut
Many people say that generating code has become cheap. True, but... bad code is more expensive than ever!
AI works well with well-designed code. To design code well, you need knowledge. So fundamental programming knowledge is becoming even more important.
🤯 Problems with AI coding
- The AI doesn't do what I want. But people often don't know what they want either! Start with design in Plan Mode. Even better, with the "/grill-me" skill.
- The AI generates too much text. A shared domain language will help you filter out the garbage. To find it in your code, use the /ubiquitous-language skill.
- The AI writes code that doesn't work. The fix - surround yourself with tests at many levels.
- The AI does too much at once. Move in small steps. Write using TDD (the /tdd skill).
- Testing AI code is hard. Design simpler interfaces and hide the complexity inside modules.
- The AI doesn't understand my code. Try making "deep" modules with the /improve-codebase-architecture skill.
- My "brain is swelling from the amount of AI code."Â Â Work on interface design; delegate implementation to agents.
Oleksandr Romanov
Senior Software Engineer in Test
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14+ years in testing and engineering | Co-host at Testing Minutes podcast | Writing and podcasting about test engineering, performance, AI, blockchain, and distributed systems | Views are my own
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