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No Silver Bullet is an essay by Fred Brooks positing that we'll never achieve 10x gains in software productivity like we've seen in hardware. Why? Because of differences between Accidental vs. Essential complexity.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No\_Silver\_Bullet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Silver_Bullet) (but I encourage you to read the original essay)
Accidental complexity is stuff like high vs. low level language, compiler speeds, manual memory mgmt vs. garbage collection, and all the things around \*crafting\* software.
Essential complexity is \*what\* the software should do. If it has to do 30 things, then all 30 must be understood, enumerated, specified, coded, tested, and maintained forever. What are valid values? How does your data interact? What happens in various scenarios? All things that must be specified \*exactly\*.
AI is squarely aimed at Accidental Complexity. As a 25yr software engineering veteran, I'm optimistic that we might get near 0 cost for accidental complexity, but those 30 things will always remain and require our brainpower. AI (LLMs, specifically) does not help this.
The angst about SaaS companies is too emotional and does not reflect the reality of software development and maintenance. It is fundamentally hard. Turning to "spec driven development" where AI does everything will also be fundamentally hard. The spec will become every bit as complex as the code.
There is no silver bullet.