Study reveals growing technical debt in AI age
Bill Doerrfeld | February 19, 2025
The alarms are starting to sound about declining code quality in the AI age.
The 2nd annual code quality report from GitClear analyzed 211 million changed lines of code and found 10x more duplicated code than two years ago and fewer signs of code reuse than ever before. Check out my full analysis, published today on LeadDev.
I covered this study the first year it was conducted, in 2024 for DevOps.com. I think the quantitative data finally proves what many of us have been hearing anecdotally. There are gaps in AI-generated code, at least for now.
Getting into why AI-generated code isn't good enough, and how we can improve, is an area I plan to cover with a broader feature story soon — stay tuned!
MCP shines for indeterministic workflows, novel integrations, and giving AI coding agents context on the fly. But for more predictable automation it may be overengineeering.
For my latest DirectorPlus column with LeadDev, I synced with JB Brown, VP of engineering at Smartsheet, to learn about their multi-agent AI development strategy.
Alternative clouds are having a moment. Nearly 75% of orgs are using two or more alt clouds beyond the hyperscalers, according to a HostingAdvice.com report.
The cloud is no longer borderless. Rising regional data laws and sovereign cloud mandates are forcing CIOs to act.
In a multi-agent coding workflow, an engineer leads a "team" of specialist AI agents to perform various SDLC tasks: scaffolding, coding, testing, log analysis, deployment, and more.
Open-source software churn is accelerating. With more frequent version end-of-lives and even total project abandonments, it's harder than ever to keep up.
I covered a report from HostingAdvice.com, which found that the majority of programming language migrations are driven by hype, instead of proven outcomes.
Facing an existential crisis, Stack Overflow has had to pivot quickly. I synced with a director to discover what team strategies are helping them adapt.
System Initiative aims to replace the toil of maintaining config files with a data-based digital twin and visual modeling engine. An engine for DevOps, if you will.
My latest feature on CIO.com explores why CIOs view APIs as a critical linchpin to realize success with agentic AI. Learn what it'll all take.
