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Stop Slopware

stopslopware.net

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Re: Stop Slopware

#131

Post by zem »

Larrikin wrote: post #10

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.

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.

Re: Stop Slopware

#132

Post by wkjagt »

wibbily wrote: post #55

It bothers me that so many programmers I know, here and in real life, seem to never actually have cared about the craft of software development? Just about solving problems. I like problem solving too. But I also like theory and craft, and in my naïveté I assumed most of us were like me. LLMs divorced craft-programming from tool-programming and now it seems like there were never any craft-programmers at all. It feels…

I quit my big-tech job 4 years ago and it feels like that was just in time. I don't think I would enjoy the current way. I still program a lot, but as a hobby, and still thoroughly enjoy the craft. I sometimes ask chatgpt for a function name, but mostly stay away from ai. I do realize that I'm less and less employable as a software engineer though.

Re: Stop Slopware

#133

Post by pbalau »

viraptor wrote: post #115
pbalau wrote: post #69

> keep the commons clean [from the second link] A glance at the r/python will show that almost every week there is a new pypi package generated by ai, with dubious utility. I did a quick research using bigquery-public-data.pypi.distribution_metadata and out of 844719 package, 126527 have only 1 release, almost 15%. While is not unfathomable that a chunk of those really only needed one release and/or were manually wri…

Storage is relatively cheap. Packages with only one release and little usage in the wild will be a rounding error in cost. A few years ago, Pypi required an over million dollars equivalent in CDN traffic per month. Storing a million of small dead packages is not worth the concern.

While my research was very shallow, the issue is with the practice. And I didn't look at how large those packages are.

It might not be a storage problem right now, but the practice of publishing crap is dangerous, because it can be easily abused. I think it is very easy to publish via pypi a lot of very heavy packages.

Re: Stop Slopware

#134

Post by tekkk »

The blog post is actually much more rational than some of the comments here. There's a fine balance what I call fetishization of tools and just knowing your craft well. Sometimes, we want to use an abstraction even though simpler approach may be better because we are in hurry, want to learn new things or just dont care particularly.

Whose to judge if it works and ships on time? Well, the fool later down the road who has to maintain it probably. But I've never believed in gate-keeping or preaching without pragmatism - I rather put my energy in teaching what little i can and hope that joy of seeing things improve for better will motivate them towards learning. If not, well it's waste of time either way.

Re: Stop Slopware

#135

Post by wkjagt »

GaryBluto wrote: post #119

"Stop making software that is buried under heaps of noise" says the 1-page HTML document that somehow has 5 build dependencies listed on it's Git repository. I don't think I've ever seen anything so tone deaf in my life. https://codeberg.org/ficd/stopslopware.net

Two are optional, and the other 3 are just for a small script to convert the one mardown file to HTML and push it live (of which one (awk) you likely already have on your system). It's actually pretty minimalist. Most tone deaf thing you've seen in your life seems a bit over the top.

Re: Stop Slopware

#136

Post by williamcotton »

smolder wrote: post #37
noman-land wrote: post #19

As a practitioner I also inherently believe in well written software but as a lifelong learner, things change, and evolve. There is absolutely no reason why software today has to be written like software of yesterday. There is no need to be so prescriptive about how software is made. In the end the best will win on the merits. The bad software will die under its own weight with no think pieces necessary. On the other…

> There is absolutely no reason why software today has to be written like software of yesterday. I get what you're saying, but the irony is that AI tools have sort of frozen the state of the art of software development in time. There is now less incentive to innovate on language design, code style, patterns, etc., when it goes outside the range of what an LLM has been trained on and will produce.

I have been writing my own DSL (and LSP) for making web apps and LLMs can do a pretty decent job of writing this new language.

https://github.com/williamcotton/webpipe/tree/webpipe-2.0

https://github.com/williamcotton/webpipe-lsp/tree/webpipe-2....

Re: Stop Slopware

#137

Post by GaryBluto »

wkjagt wrote: post #135
GaryBluto wrote: post #119

"Stop making software that is buried under heaps of noise" says the 1-page HTML document that somehow has 5 build dependencies listed on it's Git repository. I don't think I've ever seen anything so tone deaf in my life. https://codeberg.org/ficd/stopslopware.net

Two are optional, and the other 3 are just for a small script to convert the one mardown file to HTML and push it live (of which one (awk) you likely already have on your system). It's actually pretty minimalist. Most tone deaf thing you've seen in your life seems a bit over the top.

> Two are optional, and the other 3 are just for a small script to convert the one mar[k]down file to HTML and push it live (of which one (awk) you likely already have on your system).

None of which are needed. Why is an intermediate step needed?

> Most tone deaf thing you've seen in your life seems a bit over the top.

To complain about overcomplication via an overcomplicated project is a tad rich.

Re: Stop Slopware

#138

Post by ineedasername »

wibbily wrote: post #100
xeromal wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point lol. I think most devs, especially ones that call it a "craft, take themselves too seriously. We're glorified construction workers that get paid a lot

> We're glorified construction workers that get paid a lot That attitude is my point. I'm a developer by trade; I have a different set of feelings and concerns about "the industry" and how new tooling will affect it. (I even use it sometimes at work.) But I'm also a computer scientist and I thought more of you all were too. To beat my original analogy to death: I thought this was a painting forum, but it's more of a…

> I thought this was a painting forum, but it's more of a "making pictures" forum

It’s more like the discussions space to talk about things related to the painters of hotel art.

Re: Stop Slopware

#139

Post by user432678 »

pegasus wrote: post #82
jayd16 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can go to a restaurant to see new dishes (which isn't nothing) but it wont exactly teach you how to cook.

Unless you happen to meet the unendingly patient and helpful cook who is willing to explain the recipe in any depth one desires.

You still need to do the cooking yourself to master it. If that cook will be giving you a readymade dish, can you say you can cook? Although yes, that’s the goal for many…

Re: Stop Slopware

#140

Post by Spivak »

zem wrote: post #131
Larrikin wrote: post #10

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.

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.

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.
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