Posts Tagged: programming

The use of AI tools for development (AI-aided development, AIAD) and intellectual work is a disputed, hot topic. I’m generally on the pragmatic side in that regard. While the environmental impact of AI systems is evident and a reasonable concern, these tools, when used with a grain of salt and a responsible approach, can solve problems that would otherwise be hard to manage. Keep man in the loop, to say it in one sentence, and do not pretend that such tools can fully replace human judgment and capabilities.

Some months ago, I participated in this Mastodon poll. My thesis was that, in general, there is no presumptive quality flag that can be added to a product, whether it was created with AI-aided tools or not. My opinion sparked a small, heated controversy among some readers.

Here at work, we develop a series of tools for geospatial processing with multiple goals, expected maintenance durations, different scopes, generalization needs, and motivations. Note that about 10 years ago, here in Europe, a completely new approach to upstream and downstream services for Earth Observation began: ESA changed its data licenses, and distribution and access modalities entered the Big Data era.

Minimalism in development is a forgotten virtue of our time that should gain more attention. A straightforward summary of some minimalism principles is available here. Briefly, the principles of minimalism in Software Engineering can be summarized as follows, based on the manifesto for minimalism.