Java Vet's 15-Year Code Coma Ends: Discovers Sequential Sucks, Structural (and CompletableFutures) Rules in AI Agent World

A software developer with over 15 years of experience in Java development has undergone a paradigm shift from sequential to structural programming. While building an AI agent orchestration system, the developer realized that a top-down approach was necessary, unlike the traditional bottom-up style. This shift was influenced by Oracle's query optimization and Java 8's CompletableFuture. The developer notes that databases have been executing queries in a top-down manner, reordering joins based on statistics. The use of CompletableFuture and Reactor-based WebFlux enables the expression of dependency trees, allowing for concurrent execution of independent tasks. This approach is essential for complex problems like microservices architecture and AI agent orchestration. The developer's growth has followed a path from sequential to structured to structural programming, with the latter being an inevitable evolution for complex systems. This shift in mindset is crucial for efficient programming, emphasizing the declaration of dependencies and the emergence of execution order.