@Pragmatic_Eng: Old software engineering patterns are coming back because of coding agents. Dax Raad(@thdxr), co-founder of AI coding a…

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Summary

Dax Raad, co-founder of AI coding agent OpenCode, argues that old software engineering patterns like Domain-Driven Design are becoming relevant again because coding agents, while productive, need more guardrails; the verbosity that made these patterns painful is now handled by AI.

Old software engineering patterns are coming back because of coding agents. Dax Raad(@thdxr), co-founder of AI coding agent OpenCode, on why DDD is becoming more relevant and less painful: “I think it's the same problem as always, which is how do you make code bases that are easy to work in, scalable, that can flex to new requirements. A lot of the old patterns for me are coming back. We've always been a big domain-driven design company. We did it in a very light way. We're now doing it in a much heavier way because we find that these, kind of boring, enterprisey patterns end up being pretty useful because you have a bunch of idiots on your team now. Coding agents are a bunch of idiots. They are going to work 24/7 and they're going to ship a lot of stuff so you need way more guardrails than you used to. What's nice is some of these old patterns we hated because they were very verbose, they produced reliable code that was modular and safe but they were very verbose and annoying to type out… you're not typing it out anymore. Now you can get the benefits of these patterns without the downsides."
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Cached at: 06/02/26, 05:37 PM

Old software engineering patterns are coming back because of coding agents. Dax Raad(@thdxr), co-founder of AI coding agent OpenCode, on why DDD is becoming more relevant and less painful:

“I think it’s the same problem as always, which is how do you make code bases that are easy to work in, scalable, that can flex to new requirements.

A lot of the old patterns for me are coming back. We’ve always been a big domain-driven design company. We did it in a very light way.

We’re now doing it in a much heavier way because we find that these, kind of boring, enterprisey patterns end up being pretty useful because you have a bunch of idiots on your team now.

Coding agents are a bunch of idiots. They are going to work 24/7 and they’re going to ship a lot of stuff so you need way more guardrails than you used to.

What’s nice is some of these old patterns we hated because they were very verbose, they produced reliable code that was modular and safe but they were very verbose and annoying to type out… you’re not typing it out anymore.

Now you can get the benefits of these patterns without the downsides.“

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