Codebases are becoming organic: devs say AI-era engineering needs cybernetics-style abstractions
JensHonack · x · 2026-10-31
A chain of discussion on how AI reshapes software engineering:
- @poteto: code used to arrive "one drop at a time"; soon it will be written as a continuous stream, like a violent river. Big tech already handled massive engineering orgs; now AI gives every engineer an elastic workforce. The only path is evolving your systems so agents—even context-poor ones—can thrive: make the easy thing the right thing, possibly rewriting much of software.
- @viemccoy: codebases have become organic and need new abstractions; cybernetics is back. He praises Anthropic's "SuperFans" blog post as exactly the right idea. Practical stance: work with models you trust and give them autonomy to own parts of your codebase—still audited and interviewed, but each component gets a "guy obsessed with that component."
The accompanying image, "Zones of Dynamic Attention," visualizes agents each focusing on their own region of code.
Related event: YC's Garry Tan: AI-Flooded Code Calls for Rebuilding Software Engineering(2 posts)→
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