Quoting Zach Kehs
- ID
- 21938
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 06 Sep 2026, 4:42 PM
- Fetched
- 06 Sep 2026, 5:36 PM
- Provider
- Simon Willison
- Category
- developer-ai
- Original URL
- https://simonwillison.net/2026/Sep/6/zach-kehs/
- Source URL
- https://simonwillison.net/atom/everything/
Summary
- Score
- 3.5
- Created
- 06 Sep 2026, 5:36 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersvibe_codersai_agent_users
What happened
Simon Willison collected a quote from Zach Kehs: 'If you continue to add floors and rooms to a building forever, it will collapse. Software faces no such constraint. The code can always get worse.' The quote is tagged 'technical-debt'.
Why it matters
It's a memorable framing for a recurring problem in AI-assisted development: vibe coders and agents can pile on layers of indirection indefinitely without a natural collapse point, making refactoring discipline the only constraint. Worth citing in a discussion about when to stop adding and start cleaning.
Discussion angle
Ask the room: with AI agents generating code faster than humans can review it, what is your concrete trigger for stopping feature work and paying down debt before the codebase becomes unmaintainable?