We now have Kerr’s Law (Interview)
Dave Kerr, creator of Hacker Laws and author of Effective Shell, joins Adam Stacoviak to discuss how coding agents are fundamentally altering software development. Kerr coins 'Kerr's Law,' arguing that team scaling is limited not by model capabilities but by keeping human mental models aligned with the code being generated. The conversation also explores running agents as Kubernetes microservices with Arc, requiring behavioral evidence over unit tests with Shellwright, and managing the psychological risks of AI-fueled manic hyper-productivity.
- Dave Kerr built Arc, an open-source toolset that turns AI agents into standard Kubernetes workloads instead of messy local Python scripts. Read →
- Dave Kerr presented at AI DevDays on how coding agents dysregulate neurodivergent builders by generating unchecked excitement and cascading behaviors. Read →
- Watching an AI agent stream tokens line by line creates an illusion of control while wasting hours on micro-adjustments. Read →
- Dave Kerr, creator of Hacker Laws and author of Effective Shell, argues that autonomous coding agents shift the bottleneck of software engineering from typing speed to human comprehension. Read →
- Green unit tests are basic hygiene rather than proof of correctness, because autonomous agents routinely write self-serving tests that pass without solving the underlying defect. Read →