[Larrikin]

Why would any actual software engineer be against slopware?

When it inevitably all comes crashing down because there was no actual software architecture or understanding of the code, someone will have to come in to make the actual product.

Hopefully by then we will have realistic expectations for the LLM, have skilled up, and we as a community treat them as just another feature in the IDE.

[jayd16]

Personally, I'd rather make something good instead of cleaning up a mess.

But beyond that, I'm really not looking forward to trying to discover new good libraries, tools, and such in 5 years time. The signal to noise is surely dropping.

[gs17]

> someone will have to come in to make the actual product.

My experience has been more that they expect you to fix the broken mess, not rebuild it properly.

[throwaway613745]

New job title: “vibe coding cleanup specialist”

[quectophoton]

Abbreviated as "VC Cleanup Specialist".

With the ambiguity in the meaning of "VC" being intentional.

[da_grift_shift]

Launch HN: Vibely - VC Cleaners For Your VC Slop (YC S25)

[koolba]

I can see this being a HomeJoy style situation (coincidentally actually backed by YC…), where they claim to clean up all your sloppy code for $40, burn through some more VC (extra funny as it’d be spending one VC’s money to try to clean up another VC’s mistakes), give up on AI and evolve into the usual outsourced body shop, and finally fold when everybody involved realizes the business model is not solvent.

[duckerduck]

https://vibebusters.com/

[casey2]

Because open source "devs" can't make an actual product. LLMs are there direct competition, both competing for user attention.

The idea that code gluers understand the code better than a chatbot (that admittedly totally lacks the ability to understand) isn't clear.

Just like an LLM they can only create very ill-thought-out ripoffs of software from the 70s and 80s (they have yet to reach the level of ripping off 90s Microsoft.)

[cesarb]

> Why would any actual software engineer be against slopware? When it inevitably all comes crashing down [...] someone will have to come in to make the actual product.

Why would a window maker be against breaking windows?

[zem]

because a lot of us care about the software running out there being good quality, given how much of the world depends on it. i would very much rather not see it all come crashing down.

[Spivak]

I think the problem is that, as a group, people who care about software quality/craft don't actually produce higher quality software. You'll get good quality and garbage software out of the craftsman and pragmatist groups at about equal rates. And folks in the craftsman group tend to have more and stronger opinions which isn't a good or bad thing except that having too many of them on a team can lead to conflict.

[danielbln]

This just reads as copium to me. "Those hacks vomiting out slop.. pah, when they call me, the artisan, in to clean up their mess in a way God intended, then they'll see!"

More realistic: AI assisted tooling will continue to improve as it has, the average code quality will rise as conventions and workflows improve and those who wait to be called in to clean up slop or whatever will wait forever, pushed by the wayside by those who can deliver great quality with the help of these new tools.

[cesarb]

> will wait forever, pushed by the wayside by those who can deliver great quality with the help of these new tools.

That sounded a lot like the "have fun staying poor" argument from the peak cryptocurrency days.

[danielbln]

Did it? Cryptocurrency enabled gambling and illicit purchases, that's it. In all other ways it was/is a solution in need for a problem.

Current gen AI has a ton of issues, but it nevertheless enables vast amounts of use cases today, right now.

And hoping that slop that is created today will provide work for the artisanal craftsman in the future is wishful thinking at best.

[dormento]

When you think about it, "vibe coding" kinda enables gambling, but with software.

You set up your prompt, CLAUDE.MD, include the source files and let it rip. It gets some things right, some things wrong. You fix some things manually, /clean and go again. Sometimes you gotta throw it out and start over. Feels like "most players stop just before striking it big".

[CamperBob2]

No, not really.

[Larrikin]

I think you decided what my point was before reading my entire comment.