Grady Booch: Coding Agents Aren't Even Good at Design, Let Alone Architecture
Grady_Booch · x · 2026-10-13
Software engineering legend Grady Booch pushed back on the claim that coding agents deliver "better architecture":
- All architecture is design, but not all design is architecture. Architecture is the set of significant design decisions shaping a system's form and function, where "significant" is measured by cost of change.
- He argues coding agents are not even good at design: they simply pick implementations via pattern matching, and at the most superficial level at that.
- Architecture, and to a lesser degree design, are things humans do — not coding agents.
Related event: Grady Booch: Coding Agents Can't Do Architecture, Only Humans Can(2 posts)→
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