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I think a lot of folks in the industry are feeling this way. It’s an existential crisis for many of us right now. Why bother progressing when slop is “good enou

I think a lot of folks in the industry are feeling this way. It’s an existential crisis for many of us right now. Why bother progressing when slop is “good enough”? Some of us still care but I have a feeling there are a lot of people that don’t.

kusokurae 2mo ago
Good enough IFF you are dealing with a cute web app or simple SAAS or something. Software engineers feeling down should think about software designed to track medication administration, or validate their tax calculations, or to decide whether to flag you for a CIFAS marker, or whatever, and then imagine the generic "fuck it, that'll do" type vibecoder-level-engineer handling the code.
- Foobar8568 2mo ago
  Novartis outsourced most of its development in India, also lots of medicine is manufactured there in dubious conditions and has been for years, if not decades, the ship has sailed long before AI slop.
- yuye 2mo ago
  >Software engineers feeling down should think about software designed to track medication administration, or validate their tax calculations, or to decide whether to flag you for a CIFAS marker, or whatever, and then imagine the generic "fuck it, that'll do" type vibecoder-level-engineer handling the code. That makes me feel even more down, because I know this will happen.
- geraneum 2mo ago
  Even on a less dangerous level, repeated mistakes can be detrimental to your business. Imagine a typical ecommerce app for selling anything. Mess with people’s orders and money and you’ll go out of business or get sued or get a bad reputation. This not even about AI, it’s just how business works.
ulrikrasmussen 2mo ago
There's very little evidence, if any, to suggest that slop is actually "good enough". I have interacted with multiple apps that clearly were written using AI by people who did not actually spend the time understanding what was made, and it most certainly was not an experience that I would classify as "good enough". I know this may be some kind of reverse survivorship bias and that I simply do not notice all of the slop around me that somehow is truly "good enough", but I think I need to see some concrete examples to convince me.
- ozim 2mo ago
  Do you care about each and every single app you encounter? Maybe you use your 2-10 apps and that’s it? Do you even let’s say — for the excercise sake — use those apps fully, each and every screen? I use dozens of apps, most of functionality from the ones I need is a single flow or function. I don’t care about setting my avatars or filling „user details” unless it is a delivery app or a shop. Most frameworks have boilerplate for that but there are dozens of such screens that don’t have boilerplate yet those are nice to have even if not used by 90% of users.
- brabel 2mo ago
  > I have interacted with multiple apps that clearly were written using AI by people who did not actually spend the time understanding what was made… That kind of proves the opposite point: you’re using those apps so they were good enough for the people who made it to get to you who would probably never even be able go write an app. Also are you comparing the apps to your average, bug ridden app written before LLMs existed? Maybe they’re not that much worse.
  - ulrikrasmussen 2mo ago
    No, it doesn't, because I gave up using them.
- alpha_trion 2mo ago
  I certainly still care but I've seen a lot of founders and investors who don't seem to. :(

kusokurae 2mo ago

Good enough IFF you are dealing with a cute web app or simple SAAS or something. Software engineers feeling down should think about software designed to track medication administration, or validate their tax calculations, or to decide whether to flag you for a CIFAS marker, or whatever, and then imagine the generic "fuck it, that'll do" type vibecoder-level-engineer handling the code.

Foobar8568 2mo ago
Novartis outsourced most of its development in India, also lots of medicine is manufactured there in dubious conditions and has been for years, if not decades, the ship has sailed long before AI slop.
yuye 2mo ago
>Software engineers feeling down should think about software designed to track medication administration, or validate their tax calculations, or to decide whether to flag you for a CIFAS marker, or whatever, and then imagine the generic "fuck it, that'll do" type vibecoder-level-engineer handling the code. That makes me feel even more down, because I know this will happen.
geraneum 2mo ago
Even on a less dangerous level, repeated mistakes can be detrimental to your business. Imagine a typical ecommerce app for selling anything. Mess with people’s orders and money and you’ll go out of business or get sued or get a bad reputation. This not even about AI, it’s just how business works.

ulrikrasmussen 2mo ago

There's very little evidence, if any, to suggest that slop is actually "good enough". I have interacted with multiple apps that clearly were written using AI by people who did not actually spend the time understanding what was made, and it most certainly was not an experience that I would classify as "good enough". I know this may be some kind of reverse survivorship bias and that I simply do not notice all of the slop around me that somehow is truly "good enough", but I think I need to see some concrete examples to convince me.

ozim 2mo ago
Do you care about each and every single app you encounter? Maybe you use your 2-10 apps and that’s it? Do you even let’s say — for the excercise sake — use those apps fully, each and every screen? I use dozens of apps, most of functionality from the ones I need is a single flow or function. I don’t care about setting my avatars or filling „user details” unless it is a delivery app or a shop. Most frameworks have boilerplate for that but there are dozens of such screens that don’t have boilerplate yet those are nice to have even if not used by 90% of users.
brabel 2mo ago
> I have interacted with multiple apps that clearly were written using AI by people who did not actually spend the time understanding what was made… That kind of proves the opposite point: you’re using those apps so they were good enough for the people who made it to get to you who would probably never even be able go write an app. Also are you comparing the apps to your average, bug ridden app written before LLMs existed? Maybe they’re not that much worse.
- ulrikrasmussen 2mo ago
  No, it doesn't, because I gave up using them.
alpha_trion 2mo ago
I certainly still care but I've seen a lot of founders and investors who don't seem to. :(