Agents write more of the code. They do not replace knowing what good code is.
Matt Pocock makes that case in Software Fundamentals Matter More Than Ever - including the /grill-me habit of forcing the model to interrogate requirements before it spams diffs. I like that framing: fundamentals are how you judge the agent's output, not optional nostalgia.
If your review bar is "tests pass and CI is green," an agent will happily ship confident nonsense. Spec clarity and verification stay human bottlenecks - I wrote the same shape in Verification is the new bottleneck.
Watch it if you are shipping with copilots and still want to sleep.
Find this on LinkedIn and give it a thumbs up: Software Fundamentals Matter More Than Ever
Related