The rise of AI agents is paradoxically reviving 1970s-era tools like 'sed' and 'grep' because they are optimized for programmatic logic rather than human readability.
βItβs actually kind of funny now seeing how agents work because they use all of these old Unix tools... theyβre using like Zed and Grep and stuff, right?β
Guest: Scott Chacon, Co-founder of GitHub and CEO of GitButler.
βIβm sure Iβll be doing this when Iβm 90... itβs so satisfying to build and grow and create something that you want to see exist in the world.β
Git has remained largely stagnant since 2005 because it was built on a 'Unix philosophy' that prioritized data piping over human-centric design.
βThe tooling for git hasn't changed since I left... I was approached to write a third edition of the book and I was like 'why?'βit hasn't changed, it's exactly the same.β
Version control has become a 'Frankenstein' of features that lacks an overall 'arc of taste,' making it powerful but unnecessarily difficult to navigate.
βIt's just kind of become a Frankenstein where it does lots of things very fast and very well, but it's not designed; it doesn't have sort of an overall arc of taste.β
The 'next superpower' for software engineers in the age of AI will be the ability to write and communicate intent clearly, rather than just writing raw code.
βSoftware developers that will be the best producers of product in the near future are the ones who can communicate, the ones who can write, the ones who can describe. That is a I think the next superpower.β