A Manifesto for Human-Centric Engineering

"Agile" is seen - these days - as a somewhat dogmatic discipline. Process over progress. Yet the true nature of being agile is pragmatic, flexible, and well . agile. Perhaps it's time to drop the formality and the uppercase "A" and return the the principles of being agile.

AI, as it is today, offers a step-change in developer productivity, but it in no way removes the need for a human. Arguably, it enables the human to spend more time doing the things that humans are good at by taking away the repetitive stuff that we don't like.

Has chatGPT (other AIs are available) designed and created my API?. No. I designed and created it. AI helped me do it much faster than I would have been able to just a couple of years ago.

So I know how to ask good questions to create what I want. And I have a good idea of whether chatGPT talking nonsense or not. And I can tell when it's got the wrong end of the stick.

Who's up for a caveat?. Well here's one. You need certain experience and domain knowledge to get the most out of it. I know JavaScript well. And databases. And APIs. And ORMs. To the degree that I've written books about all of this.

3) In-context explanations.Learning in-situ is powerful. Searching "what does this line do" in Google will provide mixed results, out of context. You can generally - eventually - piece together the answer, but it's a time-sink. AI can explain in the context of your flow.

2) Doing the repeatable grunt work .Like creating a boilerplate specific to your needs. For example, this weekend I was building an API. With some back-and-forth using chatGPT, I had a well-designed data schema and generated Sequelize models in Node in no time.

1) Thinking through the problem statement. To create a good prompt you first need to think about the problem and be able to articulate it clearly. It's a very common engineer trait to jump into coding with loose grasp of the concept. But this way, you have to get really clear.

And now, using AI as a companion. I find it helps in three key ways.

Another was when I came across the original version of Angular. Two-way data binding in the browser! Imagine that! The ease with which I could now create data-rich web-apps was unimaginable just a couple of years before.

The first big step-change that left an impression on me was when I discovered jQuery. Probably around 2007. Before that, I'd had to hand-code every single dynamic interface and navigation bar. in browsers that has different DOMs and understood different syntax.

I've coded professionally for 20 years or so. I've seen a few step-changes in productivity. Having used AI while getting back to some coding over the last few weeks, that's what it feels like to me. A step-change in productivity. 🧵.

I tried out the latest Appletiser smart glasses recently. Perfect for avoid eye contact and pesky human interaction. There aren't many apps available, but they are great at blocking notifications.

Perhaps we should ask two different questions instead:.1) How can juniors use AI to be more productive sooner?.2) How can we use AI to help juniors shorten the time to productivity?. I can't help but feel that people plus AI is the future of work, not just AI.

All of the mid-weights and seniors started somewhere. Unless we expect AI to replace everyone above juniors in the next few years, why are we cutting of the supply at the source?.

Tech companies are hiring fewer juniors, from what I've been told. And that's because these two factors combine:.a) AI is capable of doing much of the "junior" work.b) Junior's are expensive to train up to being productive. This feels somewhat short-sighted.

And then:. 📝 Write all of this down.📖 Revisit it regularly.✍️ Keep it updated.… and ….👀 Look for opportunities to add to the list. What else could you do to know yourself and your value?. Let’s start a conversation . 💬.

Get started this weekend and start attuning to your value. Take 15 minutes to reflect on your achievements:. 💭 What are you proud of?.💭 Who asked you for help and why?.💭 What are your unique skills and talents?.💭 Why did somebody ask you to work with them?.

In the Future of Work, companies will prioritise the value you bring rather than the number of hours you work. So you need to be able to articulate and demonstrate your unique value proposition. But before you can do that, you need to know yourself.