I’ve been successfully shipping software since 1998. I just got the first payment on a greenish-field software product I’m doing on the side solo (that I couldn’t have done solo in 2019 without the tools). This is my workflow:

1. Client asks you to add a feature(s)

2. Spend two weeks unpaid walking the client through scoping down to the most minimal viable set of features that tests the business hypothesis and roadmap

2. I wrote up a reasonably exhaustive bullet list and sent it to a CGPT to write a draft formal definition of features describing what it should (and should not) do, how users can access it and what the suite of tests that we will need through TDD

3. Chat for 30 minutes with CGPT researching which data structures, algorithms, code libraries and external services might serve best to implement this feature.

4. Generate mockups and data schema alongside CGPT, to build the new feature, the tests to make sure it works as expected, and the documentation telling users how to use it and telling other engineers what they’ll need to know to maintain and debug it.

5. Generate minimum code to test the full data workflow.

6. Send repo and or working application binary to Claude and Gemini to critique

7. Adjust as needed. Deploy for client review and acceptance in sandbox. Promote to production

8. GOTO3 and loop

I can do in a week what would have taken a month a decade ago

"1. Someone asks you to add a feature to an existing program."

That someone should do it themselves in a fork then, if you design software like this you run into problems with AI and human coders the same.

Your goal is to think of the form first(!), functionality emerged from that - or cache requests for functionality over at least 3 to 6 months, then refactor from the data structures up.

I know this is not the way businesses write software but if you want to stay relevant you should take a closer look as to what system or software design means to you. Spaghetti belongs to the Italians!

Functionality can be emergent from form - then you get a forced full-stop while trying to bend or hack your structure until you solve the problem system-wide and while solving this you usually get some functionality derived for free - often stuff your company can use now or will need later but does not know about yet.

How does Andrew manage being a full-time software developer and an author? Both jobs are so cognitively demanding.