grmpyprogrammer“One of the retreat's most shareable insights was that test-driven development produces
dramatically better results from AI coding agents. The mechanism is specific: TDD prevents a failure mode where agents write tests that verify broken behavior. When the tests exist before the code, agents cannot cheat by writing a test that simply confirms whatever incorrect implementation they produced.
This reframes TDD as a form of prompt engineering. The tests become deterministic validation for non-deterministic generation. Several practitioners described moving review efforts entirely to the test suite, treating the generated code as expendable. If the tests are correct and the code passes them, the code is acceptable regardless of how it looks.”
Maybe there is some hope for the last 10 years of my career before I retire…
Sarah Savage