Martin Fowler shares observations from Thoughtworks' second Future of Software Development Retreat in Europe. Key takeaways: the debate over whether agentic development changes software engineering is over — practitioners are now shipping production code with agents. Discussions centered on whether software architecture still matters (consensus leans toward good design helping both humans and AI), the emergence of 'harness engineering' as a new discipline, and growing concern over token costs spiraling out of control at companies like Citi and Amazon. Also covered: the ethics of using AI despite its harms, a fraudulent DMCA takedown targeting Gergely Orosz's article about Pollen's collapse, and companies resorting to 'caveman-speak' prompts to reduce AI token expenditure.
