korrents

What Kent Beck thinks about coding agents

@kent-beck · 38 positions · 0 changes of mind

Creator of extreme programming and test-driven development, an original signatory of the Agile Manifesto, and the author of Test-Driven Development: By Example and Tidy First?

Kent Beck did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

3 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Kent Beck has said — not written or endorsed by them.

3 positions so far — this page is not yet offered to search engines.

  1. Our readingHaving an AI agent write tests costs tokens in the short run and saves them in the long run, because the classic failure is that the code does not work.

    Their wordsIt costs tokens in the short run, but it can save them in the long run because one of the classic genie mistakes is stuff doesn't work.

    ↗How Kent Beck shapes the software engineering industryyoutube.com 11th of 28 in this recording

    Interesting

  3. Our readingIt is far too soon for a manifesto about AI development: the Agile Manifesto took fifteen years of object-oriented practice before anyone could write it.

    Their wordswhich is why when I see manifestos today I'm just like too soon. Not a bad idea. Would love to have one just too soon. It took 15 years for the technical change of object-oriented programming to come before we could say here are the consequences of it. Here's how in a simple way we can express how to effectively use this technology that we've been using day in and day out for 15 years. The genie comes along. People are like, "Well, what's the new manifesto? It's just not manifesto time yet.

    ↗How Kent Beck shapes the software engineering industryyoutube.com 27th of 28 in this recording

    Interesting

  5. Our readingWhen an AI agent runs out of forward progress, throw the project away and start over rather than trying to tweak it.

    Their wordsthe genie runs out of g runs itself out of options it can't make further forward progress and so I'll wipe it away start over I won't try and tweak I'll start over and say all right well if I implement things in a different order. If I implement with this markdown file or if I implement it with this commit hook, we collectively need to try absolutely everything.

    ↗How Kent Beck shapes the software engineering industryyoutube.com 28th of 28 in this recording

    Interesting