[9rx]

> this assumes very good test coverage and design exist before any code is written.

Does it? In the olden days when hand-coding everything was the only way, you'd write a single test, implement what is necessary for it to pass, and then repeat until you have the full set of functionality covered. Your design would also emerge out of that process.

Which, conveniently, is also how AI seems to work best in this role. i.e. Give it a minimal task and then keep iteratively expanding upon it with more and more bits of information until finally reaching completion. So, in theory, I'm not sure anything has changed.

But the roundtrip time on the agents today is excruciatingly slow, so the question is: Does the typical developer have enough fortitude to stick with it from start to finish without looking for shortcuts to speed up the process? It may not be practical for that reason.