Across from the office a store needed more space. They put up an addition. The thing that struck me was the speed. A month or two from bare ground to a 20x20x10 meter (my really bad estimates here) structure standing there. Walls going up. Roof getting added.
Pre-manufactured parts. They just assembled what arrived.
Everyone talks about AI replacing programmers. I think it replaces something else entirely.
The experienced developer now has prefab components. The AI tools are the pre-manufactured pieces. You can assemble something real while the meeting to discuss whether to build it is still being scheduled.
The bottleneck shifts. It’s not “can we build this” anymore. It’s not even “how long will it take to build.”
It’s whether the organization can approve and validate as fast as you can build.
You could have a working prototype before the first planning meeting ends. The code can be written faster than the documentation explaining why we need it.
But here’s the question: do we trust a structure built in a day? How long does code need to sit before we believe it won’t collapse under pressure?
The building across the street will stand for decades. It better. But it was assembled in weeks because someone else already solved the hard engineering problems.
Same pieces we’re using now. Just faster assembly.