Is AI taking the fun out of software development?

About this episode

The episode discusses a study on how AI affects software development, highlighting both benefits and challenges faced by developers.

Colin is joined by Dean Kerr (Lead Developer) and Amy Laws (Developer) to discuss 'The Experiment' – a four‑week study exploring how AI really affects software development. Instead of synthetic benchmarks, the team tackled genuine issues in an open‑source project, alternating between AI‑assisted work and going completely 'cold turkey'. The contrasts were striking. Amy's AI‑free period exposed how dependent everyday development has become on instant summaries and contextual answers. Meanwhile, Dean found that adopting a simple agentic loop – Analysis → Implementation → Reflection – helped him make better use of AI rather than blindly accept its output. Together, their experiences reveal a discipline in flux: developers gain speed and support from AI, but also confront questions about craftsmanship, learning, and where the fun in software now sits as the tools reshape both workflow and mindset. Useful links for this episode Measuring the Impact of Early-2025 AI on Experienced Open-Source Developer Productivity – METR SWE-bench – SWE-bench Team Analysis → Implementation → Reflection – a practical technique for issue resolution with agentic AI – Dean Kerr, Scott Logic Agentic…

People in this episode

Host: Colin

Guests: Dean Kerr, Amy Laws

Topics covered

• AI in software development
• open-source projects
• developer productivity
• craftsmanship in coding
• impact of AI on workflow

Keywords

• AI
• software development
• open-source
• developer productivity
• craftsmanship
• agentic loop
• contextual answers

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Scott Logic

More episodes of Beyond the Hype

• Vibe coding: Is this really how we'll build software? · March 10, 2026 · 35 min
• Will sustainable AI ever be a reality? · December 11, 2025 · 40 min
• Is Agile now a dirty word? · October 22, 2025 · 33 min
• Will Low-Code and No-Code be disrupted or powered up by AI? · July 9, 2025 · 42 min
• Event-Driven Architecture: The only data integration approach you need? · June 10, 2025 · 46 min
• Does innovation have to come at the expense of ethics? · May 12, 2025 · 46 min