Dave Farley¶

Summary¶

Software engineer behind Modern Software Engineering (YouTube channel), co-authored a 151-participant controlled experiment on AI-assisted code maintainability.

Contributions¶

"We Studied 150 Developers Using AI" (January 2026)¶

Key findings from the study: - No significant maintainability difference between AI and human code - AI users ~30% faster in initial development (55% for habitual users) - Experienced developers using AI showed slight maintainability improvement - AI is an amplifier — good practices get better, bad practices get worse faster - Two slippery slopes: code bloat and cognitive debt

code-maintainability
Code Bloat
Cognitive Debt
ai-as-amplifier

Dave Farley¶

Summary¶

Contributions¶

"We Studied 150 Developers Using AI" (January 2026)¶

Related Concepts¶