Why AI Is Making Software Engineering's Golden Rules Obsolete

As AI dramatically lowers the cost of code generation and modification, traditional software engineering principles—maintainability, reusability, testability—that were optimized for an era of expensive change are losing their centrality in system design. Engineers and architects must fundamentally recalibrate what they optimize for when rewriting code is now cheap and duplication carries minimal penalty. This paradigm shift demands a complete rethinking of what constitutes excellence in software design.