alt Hacker NewsThat would be great if you were a research lab with unlimited funding. But most business needs to grapple with real user data. Data they've been hired to process or to provide an easier way to process. Trying stuff until something sticks is not a real solution.
Having tests and specs is no guarantee that something will works. The only truth is the code. One analogy that I always take is the linear equation y = ax + b. You cannot write tests that fully proves that this equation is implemented without replicating the formula in the tests. Instead you check for a finite set of tuples (x, y). Those will helps if you chose the wrong values of a or switch to the negative of b, but someone that knows the tests can come up with a switch case that returns the correct y for the x in the tests and garbage otherwise. That is why puzzle like leetcode don't show you the tests.
Of course tests can't be perfect, but even a flimsy guardrail and a warning sign before a ravine is better than nothing.
The optimal solution would be to encase the whole thing in blast-proof transparent polymer, but nobody has the money to do that :)
Trying stuff until something sticks was not a solution when a human had to do the trying and every line of code cost money.
Now you can launch 20 agents to do slightly different things to see if something sticks - and still do the manual work yourself for the 21st path. The cost for those extra 20 attempts is next to nothing compared to the price of an actual programmer.