In this blog post, I demonstrate a hands-on example of using AI tools with a legacy technology system to build the foundation for a modern software solution.
This is the SpecOps method in practice.
https://spec-ops.ai/blog/posts/reverse-engineering-legacy-app/
@mheadd I'm interested in whether you'll be able to demonstrate multiple test-passing versions based on different stacks from the same spec. And from there, I'll be very interested in the usability of the resultimg implementations, and how/if that can also be tackled with AI and incorporated into the spec, with the downstream versions regenerated.
Also: Has it occurred to you yet that this is "what if waterfall, but the cost of development/change was zero"? 😉
@mogul Why wouldn't you be able to? I'm a bit confused by the waterfall reference.
I'm advocating for human-led, iterative work with an AI coding agent and I tried to emphasize that in the post. I know there are some folks talking about AI only, but it's not how I work with these tools. I also talk at length (and ad nauseam) about the critical role that human oversight, review, and verification play in the process. In fact, once you have a decent spec to work from, there's no AI requirement
@mheadd Right, I understand the concept/ambition, just want to see the fully worked proof that the spec generated this way is "enough" to then generate and iterate in downstream implementations.
(Re: waterfall, it's the " document all your specs and verification up-front" aspect, not the lack of iteration. I'm just yanking your chain.)
@mogul I talk a lot in the book about iterative use of the SpecOps approach. There is some discussion of that here, but its expanded on in the book (I can send a copy if you like).
https://github.com/spec-ops-method/spec-ops/discussions/2
I don't do hands off, one-shot, YOLO development with AI tools and I don't recommend that others do so either. Particularly not for replacing existing legacy systems.
@mheadd Right, I get it, and I understood the difference immediately. It's more about recognizing that AI makes this more practical than in the past by bringing the cost of iteration down. I'm glad you're being explicit about that.
(That said, the AI-generated text there is exhausting to read... Endless bulleted lists, and generated headings like "The [noun]: [phrase]".)
Mark Headd
Bret Mogilefsky