The Tower Keeps Rising
This article explores the challenges of software development through the lens of the Tower of Babel, arguing that coordination and shared understanding are more critical than individual coding speed. It suggests that while AI tools enhance individual productivity, they do not solve the fundamental human difficulty of maintaining a unified conceptual language in large-scale projects.
Why it matters
It highlights a critical bottleneck in modern software engineering where human communication, rather than raw computing power, remains the primary constraint on project success.
I feel that some vibecoded software changes somewhat randomly and unexpectedly. That made me think about Bruegel’s “The Tower of Babel” which shows an already quite chaotic depiction of the Tower of Babel. The story is usually told as one about pride and ambition and ultimately why people no longer speak the same language. But it is also a story about the unity that makes technological progress work.
The text begins with a technology upgrade:
And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
They use it for a civilizational project:
let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven
But when God assesses the situation the bricks are not what concern him:
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