Essential Reading for Agentic Engineers – August 2025
17 comments
·August 22, 2025wrs
m3ch4m4n
Yeh, "Computer science curricula must evolve from syntax memorization..." starting with this right out of the gate makes me either deeply worried or sincerely skeptical about the following thoughts of the author.
My experience is that people fresh from getting their computer science degrees had the opposite problem where they didn't have enough practical courses coding something real to set them up for success in the real world.
lukeinator42
Exactly this. At the university I went to a comp sci degree was mostly theoretical with a substantial overlap with mathematics (we could even substitute a certain amount of high level comp sci classes for mathematics classes if we wanted). When I took electives such as intro level neuroscience classes I was unprepared for the levels of memorization required.
pinoy420
[dead]
slipperydippery
I have a CS degree and have been in the industry for 25 years and man I hope "memorize syntax" was never supposed to be a notable component of any of that, because I certainly haven't....
HacklesRaised
[flagged]
dang
Can you please not do this here?
It's fine to ask questions and/or make substantive points thoughtfully, of course. But snarky oneliners, name-calling, etc., more or less poisons what we're trying for on the site.
9dev
It’s the third and super rare evolution of prompt engineers, you only get it with level 40 context engineers. There’s a trick though: If you leave an egg in the day care, sometimes a shiny Agentic Engineer hatches!
apwell23
ppl using agents for work
z3c0
Prompt engineers who realized that nobody is buying their bullshit.
Cleaned up of hype, it's just a JavaScript developer who spends their time arguing with APIs in a more literal fashion than those before.
brcmthrowaway
Think this is a natural extension of the commodification of SWEs over the last 10-20 years as the newest easy way to make six figures
z3c0
Indeed. I can't fault people for wanting to give their careers a boost in these increasingly trying times. As someone who stepped into analytics just in time to catch the wave (10 years ago), I can understand why someone would want to hop aboard.
That said, I at least took the time to learn the maths.
eikenberry
> Half expect 90% AI-written code within 2 years, half within 5 years [..]
Generated, not written. IMO this is an important distinction as developers know that generated code has limitations that differentiate it from hand written code. I'm sure this is a result of the quote being from people who aren't developers (usually CEOs), but when addressing developers it would be best to align the vocabulary to the audience.
hlieberman
Instead of reading it, just assign one of the agents to read it for you.
namanyayg
Feels great to be featured here!
rschiavone
I've found your blog by chance here on HN and it's been extremely useful in helping me navigate, as a software engineer, the new world of AI coding agents, so thank you for that!
djkddkkfkf
[flagged]
If current computer science curricula is accurately described here as “syntax memorization” then we’re already in deep trouble. I hope that’s just throwaway snark. (Though this whole thing reads very much like an LLM wrote it, and LLMs can’t be snarky, though they can sound snarky.)