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Martin Fowler

What Martin Fowler thinks about coding agents

@martin-fowler · 21 positions · 0 changes of mind

Chief scientist at Thoughtworks and author of Refactoring, Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture and Refactoring: Ruby Edition. His bliki at martinfowler.com has been the reference text on refactoring, testing and architecture for two decades.

Martin Fowler did not write this page.

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4 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Martin Fowler has said — not written or endorsed by them.

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  1. Our readingUsing an AI tool well is something you have to learn, exactly as it was with object orientation; a bad first impression proves nothing.

    Their wordsone of the things that I took from that was to use this tool well, you have to learn how to use it well, which was also something very true of object orientation.

    ↗Martin Fowler & Kent Beck: Frameworks for reinventing software, again and againyoutube.com 7th of 20 in this recording

  3. Our readingPredictions that nobody will write code soon dodge the question of what code is: prompting a model is still producing something we will have to read and change.

    Their wordsI go to myself, "Well, yeah, but what do you mean by code?" Because that kind of implies nobody's writing anything. Well, we're at least doing some prompting. We're having some interaction with the genie. What's that going to be if it's not some form of code in some way? I think the nature of what code is is going to be quite possibly for a very radically different. But I think there is still a need to produce it and be able to interact with it in some way.

    ↗Martin Fowler & Kent Beck: Frameworks for reinventing software, again and againyoutube.com 12th of 20 in this recording

  5. Our readingOne person with many agents is probably not the right answer; the better bet is two-pizza teams made more effective, with pairs of humans steering the agents together.

    Their wordsMy bet is on the more effective two pizza teams. Um and it it's also some interesting, you know, feedback we're beginning to get in terms of pair programming. I mean, with pair programming, do you say pair programming is the human and the genie? Or is it two humans and and genies? Because if it's two of us, we can control the genies perhaps a little bit better.

    ↗Martin Fowler & Kent Beck: Frameworks for reinventing software, again and againyoutube.com 17th of 20 in this recording

  7. Our readingThe Venn diagram of developer experience and agent experience is a circle: well-modularised code and good tests help the agents exactly as they help the humans.

    Their wordswhich is that the the Venn diagram of developer experience and agent experience is a circle. And the point here is that, you know, what we do that that's good for the agents is good for the humans and vice versa. I'm hearing a lot of feedback saying, "Yeah, actually, if you have well-modularized code, that actually makes it easy for the agents to work with."

    ↗Martin Fowler & Kent Beck: Frameworks for reinventing software, again and againyoutube.com 19th of 20 in this recording