GitHub CEO: manual coding remains key despite AI boom

"He warned that depending solely on automated agents could lead to inefficiencies. For instance, spending too much time explaining simple changes in natural language instead of editing the code directly."

Lots of changes where describing them in English takes longer than just performing the change. I think the most effective workflow with AI agents will be a sort of active back-and-forth.

Yeah, I can’t count the number of times I’ve thought about a change, explained it in natural language, pressed enter, then realized I’ve already arrived at the exact change I need to apply just by thinking it through. Oftentimes I even beat the agent at editing it, if it’s a context-heavy change.