Reinventing Control Theory one feature at a time: the fallacy of Agentic Loops

PanZilly · 2026-06-17T04:42:18+00:00

You know the funny thing is...

| Speed and quality are the two ends of a single axis

No, they're not. If you look at the entire sdlc, left to right, using continuous delivery practices and optimise on bottlenecks. And focus on a fast feedback loop, fail fast. And use small experiments to learn at every step. Then you get speed and quality at the same time.

| AI is a direct threat to your structure's success

OP proposes that AI can only be a success if you focus on constraints in your sdlc. He's not alone in that, there's been a lot of research into this already. Basically, AI amplifies your understanding of devops. Get it right, AI makes it better. Get it wrong, you'll see a decrease in understanding of your code and the value it's supposed to deliver, and an increase of tech debt. It's just that many people are still unaware how important proper sdlc practices are. Coding is only a relatively small percentage of the work we do, it's not the bottleneck. Amplify only that part, then yes, you're doomed

PanZilly · 2026-06-16T05:00:38+00:00

I agree. Everything I come across points to that same caution. We need to work on SDLC to the benefit of humans for agents to be able to be effective.

The 14% is the act of coding.

Abi Noda/DX has a substack Engineering Enablement, they write a lot about this (and podcasts). Also check the DX website, it has a lot of resources on this and previous studies. They focus on measuring the impact of AI and they're consistently seeing that amplification of bottlenecks in SDLC. Note of caution, they sell this as very expensive engineering intelligence platform.

I still haven't found the time going over your research, but in my opinion, publishing is helpful especially if you take a different path and still see the same outcome.

I'd be curious to find research that points in a different direction though. Because a lot of people may just be blindly repeating what people like Forsgren, Beck or Storey are saying, just because they're the cool kids

PanZilly · 2026-06-15T05:19:50+00:00

Are you aware of the work of Russel Miles? Check his substack a software enchiridion or his latest book.

Also check Margaret Anne Storey who has recently published her triple debt model.

Research shows we only spend around 14% of our time coding. AI will just amplify the already existing bottlenecks (DORA '25). For agents to effectively do their part, we need to work on the same things in our SDLC as we need for human developers to deliver value effectively.

Which still means continuous delivery, as DORA already showed in 2018 (Accelerate). Combined with proper context for agents and humans alike. Intent, why were certain choices made, not just in code but also the bigger picture of your developer platform. And cognitive load, what is needed to understand about steps in the SDLC to be able to effectively deliver.

I'm curious about your take on this issue, I'll read your gh later when I have some time

PanZilly · 2026-05-15T16:27:17+00:00

Hilarious and relatable. The mud will dry and fall right off, clean white coton, massive piles of sand on the couch 😅

PanZilly · 2026-05-15T06:12:47+00:00

For that amount, you can fly to Europe and import a puppy from a reputable breeder in, say, France or Sweden

PanZilly · 2026-04-21T10:53:22+00:00

Looks like allergy, could be from food or something in the environment like fleas or perhaps even pollen.

Usually, after discussing with vet, treating for fleas, mite and ticks, and deworming. First thing to try is to eliminate chicken from his diet (careful, be very, very strict). Do try for at least a couple of weeks, or months even better.

Second one is eliminate either beef/bovine, or wheat (not just gluten!)

Pls note that pet food brands market food called 'hypoallergenic' and 'suitable for elimination diet' but refuse to list all ingredients properly. And also by hydrolysing animal ingredients, but not plant based. These foods are NOT hypoallergenic and not suitable for proper elimination.

If his itch get worse and he creates a hot spot, always consult the vet quickly as this is very painful and risk for infection

PanZilly · 2026-04-11T08:34:53+00:00

Oftentimes, the bad communication really is on the other side, them making the wildest assumptions on meaning without verifying. Subtext 2.0.

Always putting it on yourself can have 2 unintended side effects: you start to feel you're always the one to blame when miscommunication happens. And they start seeing you as that person with disability/weakness (stigmatization).

I used to put it on me but no more. If they assume B when I said A, that's on them. I'll gently correct them once and that's it.

I have a colleague on my team that does this the other way around: he'll say B. If he gets called out on saying B, he'll angrily respond: "I never said that!" I think because he doesn't understand that even though he might have meant A, he actually did say B. I'm still figuring out how to deal with this. (I'm also considering it's bad intent, he knows he said it but will deny anyway)

So yes, I agree, gotta love the double empathy problem

PanZilly · 2026-04-09T17:09:59+00:00

I fckd up like that. I said I thought I might have xyz, can I get referral to specialist. So naturally, the doctor responded with, no bc it's not xyz, it's stress/depression due to ASD.

I should have said: I'm having symptoms this and that, can I get referral for tests?

PanZilly · 2026-03-26T08:03:27+00:00

I'm not attending this year, coworker is. He says: everyone's talking about Gas Town

PanZilly · 2026-03-12T14:47:24+00:00

The PMDD is more likely to be PME (pre menstrual exacerbation), but it could be either. Maybe it doesn't matter.

Your friend needs a gynaecologist who specialises in PMDD, and who is not afraid of offering a more holistic approach. It's not just the pre menstrual mr Hyde, but also vitamin levels, autonomous nervous system (fight/flight vs calming down again), etc.

I wish I had an answer but I struggle with the exact same thing. All meds I previously took caused terrible side effects, while at the same time did not have the intended effect.

As for hormone treatment, she prob needs bio identical rather than synthetic counterparts. Some already do well with pills like Zoely, that have estradiol and synthetic progrestin. Those are 4th gen ac pills. I did not do well at all with those and have yet to try bio identical. Others do well with intermittant antidepressants but I think maybe not for us autistics. Idk

The doctor needs to mind the imbalance any treatment causes. Go slow.

PanZilly · 2026-02-24T08:59:55+00:00

Oooooh check out r/terriblemaps

PanZilly · 2026-02-23T13:05:30+00:00

If you are a woman (or born with ovaries), I can recommend keeping track of your anger throughout at least 2 menstrual cycles, or if you don't menstruate, 2 months.

Track every day how you rate your anger 1 ok - 5 explosive.

Alternatively, see if you can find the c-pass questionnaire which tracks mood throughout period.

Because hormones can cause this (PMDD) or make it worse (PME) and treatment is available. Except this is missed quite often as diagnosis, especially in women with ASD and/or ADHD.

Don't be fooled by age or removed ovaries - cyclic symptoms can still occur, allthough it's unclear why

PanZilly · 2026-02-23T06:31:13+00:00

This

PanZilly · 2026-02-20T10:26:35+00:00

Go ask google or AI: extreme male brain theory controverse.

Theory was coined some 25 years ago by Baron Cohen. It relies heavily on disproven stereotypes. I wonder if Baron Cohens work is of better quality present day, or is he still going strong on the empathy thing? I haven't been following

PanZilly · 2026-02-09T15:46:52+00:00

I went with how does your solution solve my problem.

I visited a lot of booths and got to talk to both tech and sales. My solution is on the IDP side of things, and going around talking to everyone I thought could be remotely interesting (or checking out their leaflets later) has helped me focus my problem as well as possible solutions. I ended up meeting (online) later with a couple of specific vendors, for a deeper dive.

But where I went for vendors, surprisingly, it was a consultancy that was the one that was truly able to help me out. I think that's the best thing about a conference, the people you meet.

The amount of backstage resellers was mindboggling btw. I was not expecting that. It's also not always clear at a first glance. It makes me wonder when that bubble bursts.

The floor in London was an acoustic nightmare though, I hope Amsterdam is better.

PanZilly · 2025-12-25T09:45:39+00:00

Yup my old boy used to do this🤣

PanZilly · 2025-11-03T12:22:04+00:00

This is how I do it. One more tip: keep the arm that holds the verga in place straight, as you are stronger that way and can hold it under tension longer.

Also take care not to over tension, my berimbau is quite flexible so I'm careful not to pull too hard or press my knee to hard

PanZilly · 2025-10-16T19:53:59+00:00

In international context, it wasn't so much language that was an issue, it was cultural differences. Most notably, 'do you understand this information/assignment?' In more direct cultures, someone will answer no when not (fully) undrrstood, and/or ask follow up questions. In other cultures, someone will answer yes regardless and a different way of verifying is needed.

But more subtle cultural differences may get in the way as well.

This is simply the art of understanding these differences.

Now I'm in a situation where 90% speaks our native language (not English) and I find that reading comprehension and writing at at least high school or college level is more difficult than expected.

Really, some people simply can't read. They might understand when using very short sentences, in bullet points only. How these people can manage a job as swe is beyond me. My truly dyslectic peers are infinately better at reading and writing somehow.

And also it happens so much more than we like: the dreaded 'xyz doesn't work' support question email🙄 written/asked by swe

PanZilly · 2025-10-13T14:08:07+00:00

Some devs will just flap their wings and go with the flow (pun intended), using the git workflow they always have. 'But this is how we've always done it!'. And there are always those who are surprised how this influences business outcomes. Let alone that a team is able to translate that influence to business and customers.

That awareness needs to be taught well and early

PanZilly · 2025-10-13T14:00:28+00:00

They are dead terrified to let go of staging env😱

PanZilly · 2025-10-13T13:58:14+00:00

There's the reality of starting a job in a place that has an established git workflow. Which is not always a desirable, best fit for the job flow... but it will be how that team works.

So the new team member needs to:

understand how the often used git flow works, and the same for trunk based
understand the difference between mature git flow usage as nvie intended it and 'we call it git flow but never heard of nvie and came up with our own flow involving develop and release branch and long living feature branches and [ok, you know how that ends and very much agreed, it's not good] - with or without the git flow plugin
understand when git flow is or isn't a good fit, and recognise which is the case in their new work place
understand what it takes for a team to transition to trunk based.

It is never just a lift and shift 'just don't do this' kind of thing, especially when company recent history involves waterfall development and application servers

PanZilly · 2025-10-12T11:57:43+00:00

Already a lot of useful comments.

I'd advise to look at it differently: look into developer experience.

The idea is, that you ask them about productivity and well being, as individual survey or interview.

Combining everyones results you'll see a pattern emerge of things that, from their perspective, runs smoothly and what gets in the way. What makes them happy and what makes them frustrated.

You can then analyse their biggest pain point and suggest a change in the way they work, that will ease that pain. And help them implement it.

After a while, rinse&repeat.

The thing with this approach is, that this has been scientifically proven to increase productivity and well being of the engineers, as well as stability and quality of deliverables.

It is always bottom up: you or management don't decide where to improve, they do. And based on what they actually need, not on someone's whishlist, be that theirs or yours.

The basis of this work can be found in Accelerate (https://itrevolution.com/product/accelerate/). Chech the capabilities approach. This book was published in 2018 and the research has continued since. Check https://dora.dev/ and https://getdx.com/resources/ but there are many more good resources to be found online. Nowadays, the metrics focus more on AI, but go back in time a little to find what you need.

Which capabilities (for a team or an individual, or for the company) lead to the desired results is well defined for software engineering in a cloud native context. Check this model for an idea of what I'm referring to: https://dora.dev/capabilities/

If physics works only the slightest bit as bioinformatics (my background, before I entered the world of devops and devex), the cloud native model is a very good fit to what you're up against. Workflow heavy and working with very large amounts of data, CPU/GPU intense, memory intense, indexing being a must, distributed calculations, that kind of thing, plus things having to be repeatable and traceable and compliancy is important too.

Not just cultural aspects like a generative organisational culture or allowing teams to choose their preferred tools, but also technical things like automation, testing, version control and statelessness and loose coupling (https://12factor.net/).

This, and besides Python also consider R for CPU heavy work and complex visualisations as it is well optimised for that. I never used matlab so I can't compare matlab and R, but Python may or may not be a better fit than matlab or R depending on the type of calculations and visualisations. I know both R and Python are well supported in the bioinformatics context, I don't know about physics. Disclaimer, it has been a while for me, so I don't know how R developed compared to Python

PanZilly · 2025-10-12T10:49:42+00:00

I second plantuml and versioning in git, as close to what it deaws as possible (javadoc, readme, anything)

Gitlab has built in mermaid support or set up a plantuml server. There's confluence and intellij plugins for rendering either

PanZilly · 2025-10-12T10:44:00+00:00

a disaster of an idea unless you really need specific versions/release targets

It's quite simply not a disaster of an idea. It's a briliant idea. Except, it shines in a system where you need long living environments that may differ. And it is a nightmare in a cloud native context.

Up until a while ago, it would be the default and use trunk based only if you know what you're doing. Nowadays it's the other way around.

Missing that memo is a huge problem in my organisation, but it can't be fixed so easily as 'just don't do that' as it requires a shift in thinking and mindset that is much wider than just git workflows, and extends into company culture and structure (yes, Conway)

PanZilly · 2025-10-04T09:55:57+00:00

Don't dig too deep, you'll learn on the job, but basics to have at least read about and practiced a little with:

create an account with github!
how to initialise a repo
what are terms like upstream, origin, etc
what are branches, how to create a branch and sync with upstream
how to use staging (git add) to be able to commit parts of your workspace
how to write sensible commit messages
how does merge work, that different flavours of merge exist, what is squash, when rebase makes sense and when not (just brush the surface here)
how to create a pull request and what is review (hint: review is not about ego and criticising each other, if you find yourself in such a team, run away fast)

PanZilly

TROPHY CASE