The bygone much-derided Software Craftsmanship debate brought forward and addressed some of the same topics we now see bubble up from the large democratisation of software construction as more – previously only casually acquainted – people are introduced to the challenges of building software.

If you recall, the software craftsmanship was about telling developers to stop acting like labourers and start acting like professionals. I.e. instead of blaming tools, managers or customers, they would start taking responsibility for the quality of the software product. Not offering to introduce poor constructs as a way of achieving short term time savings, when as a supposed professional you know what the risks are. There were proposals of self-regulating the industry, introducing something akin to a bar association and licensing, so that you had a professional license you were risking if you turned a blind eye to data security or similar. The thesis was, if we do not do it ourselves, it will be imposed upon us by governmental regulation as soon as the loss of life becomes too egregious.

The reason for concern at the time of the Software Craftsmanship debate was the exponential growth of the programmer workforce, with a majority of active software developers having less than three years experience, combined with the way software was permeating all aspects of life, getting into cars, fridges and toasters et c.

Software bugs took the first lives back in the mid 1980s, and with people vibe coding apps or running AI agents without enough experience, we will see drastic increases in cost, hopefully only economical.

I myself likened it to plumbers and electricians having certifications within the trades, where they could risk exclusion if they did not adhere to agreed standards.

If the explosive growth of the programming professions were a problem in the mid 2010s, what do we think is happening now?

I liken the new sets of AI tools to the proliferation of power tools that are available to the general public. It does not have to be a disaster to do your own plumbing or electricity in your house, but if you ask any plumber or electrician they seem to have a kaleidoscope of experience of DIY installations they have encountered that were interesting / dangerous.

There is a reason why the council might send a man round to see what you are up to when undertaking construction on your house.

The point of this is not to broadly accuse people of being the software equivalent of a cowboy builder, the point is – I think the software developers that will keep their jobs going forwards are the ones that abandon the role of labourer and at minimum become a foreman over their AI agents. Occasionally lift your gaze above the line-by-line and examine architecture, question the overall structure of what is being built. Along with ensuring that the code remains sound, we additionally need more eyes on the bigger picture. If you have an organisation above you that make strategic decisions about software architecture, ask good questions, bring contrary opinions – maybe your observations are correct, maybe they are not – but the discussion is healthy. Blindly typing some code because the boss says so, that job will be done faster and cheaper by an AI agent.