You Are the Harness

We all know that a harness makes a huge difference given the same model. However, what makes the greatest difference is the programmer using AI; in this sense, you are the harness. Of course, you are the harness in many other senses as well. On the other hand, I never understood the sentiment that AI shifts the bottleneck from coding to verification as if verification was never the bottleneck. Vibe coding has made me realize that most programmers, regardless of seniority, have been drowning themselves by drinking so much kool-aid and have been so unaware of their situation that they burden themselves with at least 10x more coding rituals than the actual thinking needed for making sure that the program works as intended with as few side-effects as possible. Now that so called software engineers have outsource their rituals like the red/green TDD/BDD role-playing (why not just use a fuzzer at the very least?), they are faced with nothing but the essential complexity that requires a near-formal approach to problem solving, which has always been there but completely ignored. In this sense, the programmer is the harness that makes the greatest difference.