Code is clay now(albertodenia.com)
265 points by albertodenia 6 days ago | 175 comments
tl;dr: Agentic coding has made code cheap to change, transforming it from unforgiving stone into malleable clay you can reshape iteratively. Two workflows are emerging: the "artisan" stays in the tight feedback loop, applying judgment on every iteration (distinct from vibe coding because they still judge the code itself), while the "factory" builds pipelines of specs, generators, and verifiers that embed judgment upfront and minimize human involvement. Most real workflows will blend both, and picking the right approach for the problem remains the core of software engineering.
HN Discussion:
  • ↓Code was always malleable; the clay analogy isn't new and AI doesn't fundamentally change this
  • ↑The author's framing of artisan vs factory workflows is apt and resonates with personal experience
  • ↓The article overemphasizes code when the real bottleneck has always been business/market concerns
  • ~LLM-generated code should be used for discrete, testable bricks rather than wholesale vibe-building critical systems
  • ↓Lisp and similar languages already provided code-as-clay malleability without needing LLMs