alt Hacker NewsRemarkable that it echoes, from a different angle, this post from just a few days ago on HN:
https://martinalderson.com/posts/has-the-cost-of-software-ju...
This last post was largely dismissed in the comments here on HN. Simon's experiment brings new ground for the argument.
The reason is that the post you link to is overly simplistic. The only reason why Simon's experiment works is because there is a pre-existing language agnostic testing framework of 9000 tests that the agent can hold itself accountable to. Additionally, there is a pre-existing API design that it can reuse/reappropriate.
These two preconditions don't generally apply to software projects. Most of the time there are vague, underspecified, frequently changing requirements, no test suite, and no API design.
If all projects came with 9000 pre-existing tests and fleshed-out API, then sure, the article you linked to could be correct. But that's not really the case.