Are we just going back to the past as AI grows? (Loop Engineering)

This post is about the term "Loop Engineering". Honestly, it's a buzzword right now, it's hyped up and everyone wants it, but what even is it in reality?

Look I understand that the Claude devs or Openclaw's creator need to come up with fancy buzzwords for some purpose, either marketing or for the millions of vibe coders to understand.

Right now I'm in the process of creating my own "Loop Engineering" system, but as I dig deeper into it, I realize that it's the basics.

I'm a first year university student currently, learning Computing Software Development. The first thing we learned in semester 1 was a term called "SDLC", this was back in October/November.

It was a pain memorizing all of that for written exams, but now I realized that, "Wait, university actually taught me something before the AI hype guru's did".

SDLC refers to "Software Development Life Cycle" (yes there are other full forms, but I'm referring to what's relevant in today's context). It's a process that's followed step by step to efficiently plan, build and test software.

The most popular one is called the "Waterfall Method" whereas the most flexible one is Agile (As far as we've been taught). The waterfall method consists of: requirements → design → implementation → testing → deployment → maintenance. Brings back the memories of the 2 AM sessions where I had to memorize all of this.

If you look at the current day's "Loop Engineering" it follows the exact same psychology, different applications though. Usually it's spec (Brainstorming with the AI and making a solid game plan) → build (Claude code'ing through that spec) → test (Testing everything end to end) → fix → repeat

Now the whole term "SDLC" originates all the way back from 1970, it was used much earlier, but more formally recognized with growing tech from 1970 or so.

So, have hundreds of thousands of people been building a "loop" system that came out before most of us were born?

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Are we just going back to the past as AI grows? (Loop Engineering)