Kent Beck

Beck's argument drops the old 'you save typing' defense of YAGNI and replaces it with discounting: build structure now for a feature arriving in three months and you've sequenced cost ahead of return, a loss that lands whether or not your prediction was right.

Half the thread debates the economics; the other half noticed the author's own disclaimer that the back half is a 'genie-generated description of YAGNI', ran it through Pangram, and got 70% AI. One regular: 'I don't know what happened to Kent Beck.'

Beck sorts new hires into A, B and C: the minimum is that your code works and you don't drown the team; the top tier challenges whether a task is even worth doing and simplifies code around it. The frame: your salary is the premium on a future engineer.

Readers who hire juniors disagreed flatly. Companies hire juniors because there are junior tasks to do, one said. Others heard the 'least effort on people who won't make it' line as a lack of leadership, an ego problem, and a ladder being pulled up.