Post #450934

2026-02-24 21:12 UTC

The “writing specs” culture is becoming ridiculous. It was necessary when the cost of building was high. It feels productive when you do it. But if you think about it, you can create a POC with an agent much faster than you can draft specs. And that POC will answer most questions about how the experience should actually work, far better than trying to predict every detail upfront in a document. Product owners need to be closer to the creation. We need to change our mindset. #softwaredevelopment

Replies (3)

@mamouneyya@mastodon.social 2026-02-25 13:21

In my opinion, agents have massively accelerated the zero-to-POC phase, and we should embrace that. However, they don’t do much to carry a product to the finish line or truly polish it, and that gap is real. I’ve felt the burnout of starting things quickly, only to be reminded, over and over again, how hard finishing actually is.

Open ##1741789
@paulehoffman@infosec.exchange 2026-02-25 20:24

@mamouneyya @brentsimmons This might be fine for stand-alone products, but not for anything where you will want interoperability. Once the POC works, the expectation will be that other implementations will have to be bug-compatible. Having to write specs will greatly reduce the number of design bugs. Said another way, you can’t expect an agent to be nearly as good at seeing design bugs that affect interoperability as a human who has had to deal with someone else’s bad design decisions.

Open ##1741790
@oscherler@tooting.ch 2026-02-28 01:00

@mamouneyya So the spec is “cf. POC,” and you reverse engineer it to know what to do? Sounds like a great plan to get from a POC to a SPOC in no time indeed. @brentsimmons

Open ##1741792