Verum Factum and the Creator’s Confidence

The other day I read about this Italian philosopher from like 1700 who coined a phrase: verum esse ipsum factum. What is true is what is made, or: we only really understand what we created. Verum Factum: we only really know what we made. This resonates immediately as a software developer. When I wrote a program, or when I’ve changed it enough, I feel like I know it, like it’s under my fingers. It’s a particular feeling of knowing. It means I have confidence that I can predict the software, that I can change it, that I can pinpoint problems as an expert. I love that feeling. It’s a verum-factum feeling. That’s what I lose when AI writes the code. There’s a loss of intimacy with my own programs. I don’t know them inside and out, I didn’t shape their every structure and dataflow. There are ways of working with the agent to keep this verum-factum knowledge, to feel like this program is mine. I seek these. Here are some I’ve found so far: I establish clear domain terms, some up front and…