Eight Myths About AI in Software Engineering, Debunked
Eight Myths on Software Engineering and GenAI
Generative AI is reshaping software engineering, but hype often outpaces evidence. This article debunks eight persistent myths, from the belief that developers spend most of their time coding (they spend only 14%) to the idea that AI helps all tasks equally. It argues that measuring impact by lines of code is flawed, and that productivity gains require organizational-level changes, not just individual tool adoption. Drawing on recent studies, it offers a research-backed view for leaders making AI decisions.
Measuring software productivity by lines of code is like measuring progress on an airplane by how much it weighs.
- a_bonobo
>On my visits to the Bay Area, I would ask AI researchers or interns why they are doing their current research or projects, when in a year or three agentic LLMs could probably do them;
This is such a weird point to make that doesn't become correct just because everyone makes it, all the time. Why clean the ocean if some magic future tech will clean them? Why save the world now if some benevolent AI is 'just around the corner' and will do it for us? And people have been making this point for years now, and it's not like my job got any easier. I just got more AI.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51294/waiting-for-the...
And I say that as someone who uses Claude Code in complex environments almost hourly; I, as the human, still have to do the thinking as Claude still 'can't jump' [1] and I have seen no evidence that they (or similar AI, any time soon) will 'jump' like a human brain does.
- simonw
> We already know developers don’t actually spend most of their time writing code, with studies at Microsoft and elsewhere showing it’s closer to 14 percent.
Anyone else finding they're spending more time writing code (or at least driving agents to write code) now?
14% used to feel about right for me - I'd spend the rest of the time researching approaches and libraries, planning things out in issues, or sometimes just thinking really hard about problems I ran into.
Now... I still do those things, but I'm doing many of them faster - and I'm often doing them while my coding agents are churning away on code.
There's also this weird effect where the harder a problem is the more I can get done in parallel with it, because an agent might need to spend 20 minutes on it without my involvement.
- levmiseri
> f developers spend only about 15 percent of their time typing in the editor
I think this is missing an important detail. Lots of time was spent on non-coding stuff, because coding used to be more committal and hence expensive. With how quickly one can code up a quick prototype or even production-ready code these days, the code becomes the communication tool as well.
- mkozlows
I feel like all you need to know about how seriously to take this is that they cite that ancient early-2025 METR study, and describe it in the text as "recently one even found..."
- willtemperley
With all the myths and hyperbolae circulating regarding AI, I'd love to know what it's like at large software companies adjusting to this brave new world.
It's easy for a small team to adjust workflows and roles, but I just imagine the office politics must be a waking nightmare in big organisations right now.
- lz400
Like many others in the comments, I feel there are a lot of assumptions in this piece. Before, coding is only 14% therefore, small slice. I think that's a very superficial assumption. That was because coding was expensive and we needed to be sure we didn't code the wrong thing. If code is as cheap as it is now, we will optimize differently, we will structure around it. Instead of so many meetings we will code 5 different versions of the same thing and choose, etc.
- giorgiogamba
I mostly agree with the part where it is stated that AI is a tool which received massive investments without knowing how to maximize its utility. I think that we will pay for it in the near future.
- kylecazar
I don't understand Myth 1 (Developers Spend Most of Their Time Writing Code).
They quote a study in which developers report to spend 11-14% of their day coding. The rest is stuff like solution design and meetings. The insinuation is that AI can at most automate 14% of your day.
The problem with this argument is that once you have code, some (not all) of the precursors to code go away.