An explosion of new SDLC for SWE

In short, we are in the midst of a Cambrian explosion of developer tools, and a dizzying array of approaches are currently being tested for their evolutionary fitness. Consider even an abbreviated, absolutely non-exhaustive list of related tools: Aboard, Bolt, Cline, Copilot, Cursor, ChatGPT / Codex, Claude / Code, Gemini / CLI, Factory, Lovable, Poolside, Replit, Same.dev, vibes.diy, v0, watsonX and Windsurf. Not all of these will succeed, and indeed some argue that all of these are doomed because the economic footing they’re built on is fatally unsound. That argument is built on two core assumptions, however: that vendor costs will never come down and that user costs can not be raised – neither of which seems entirely safe.

Agreed on the explosion of tooling. Cursor certainly has a wide lead. especially after the poaching (?) of windsurf engineering?

_{Quote Citation: Stephen O’Grady, “AI Tooling, Evolution and The Promiscuity of Modern Developers – tecosystems”, 2025-07-09, https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2025/07/09/promiscuity-of-modern-developers/}