you're a lot more skilled than I am if you're able to know the abstractions and patterns you want while only have a weak grasp on the actual code. For me the abstractions emerge as I understand what I'm actually working with
How much of a grasp does one need on the UEFI code operating their computer? The drivers that operate a hard drive? The communication protocols for their monitor?
This seems to me to be the fallacy — that all code must always be understood to operate properly or to be useful. If the AI is sufficiently intelligent enough to understand the code, at some point (most) people won’t need to. Not saying that’s now, but that is likely to be where things are headed in the long horizon. That said, I don’t have a crystal ball, nor do the people claiming that won’t be the outcome, so right now it seems more like people arguing about which forks should be used while the cake is still in the oven.
But, with AI, the cost of code has gone down more than it already has. Well, cheap things are easy to throw away. So you prototype, prototype, prototype, and close the loop as much as possible with the customer. True agile development, not big A Agile.
The problem is this requires alignment from management, and we're just not seeing it at many company. They can't grasp that things have changed, and that throwing away code is free. They don't trust engineers to close that gap, so customers and stakeholders are still waaaaaay over there and we're delivering features they don't want.