The Four Horsemen of Agentic Coding
Summary
Alex Martsinovich argues that agentic coding is both highly useful and yet harmful, outlining four problems he calls the four horsemen: Slop, Alienation, Deskilling, and Team Fallout. The piece critiques how current LLMs produce code that feels unreadable (slop), distances engineers from their work (alienation), erodes professional skills (deskilling), and weakens collaboration within teams (team fallout). He ends by urging reflection on how to move forward with AI-assisted coding while preserving craft and culture.