'Some Uncomfortable Truths About AI Coding Agents' — Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

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A blog post gaining 79 HN points and 98 comments argues that AI coding agents won't save developer productivity because writing code was never the real bottleneck — validation is. Developers spend only 20-40% of their time coding, so even significant speedups there yield modest overall gains. A randomized control study found developers using AI assistance completed tasks more slowly due to verification overhead and rework cycles. Some companies see 50% fewer incidents; others see twice as many.