An AI Vibe Coding Horror Story

> Software engineering is looking more and more like it needs a professional body in each country, and accreditation and standards.

I mean, people could voluntarily try to create rules of thumb they think are valuable and could try to popularize them

I don't think that requires further restrictive actions

This is what I’m noticing. At my workplace, we have 3 or 4 non-devs “writing” code. One was trying to integrate their application with the UPS API.

They got the application right, and began stumbling with the integration - created a developer account, got the API key, but in place of the applications URL, the had input “localhost:5345” and couldn’t get that to work, so they gave up. They never asked the tech team what was wrong, never figured out that they needed to host the application. Some of the fundamental computer literacy is the missing piece here.

I think (maybe hopeful) people will either level up to the point where they understand that stuff, or they will just give up. Also possible that the tools get good enough to explain that stuff, so they don’t have to. But tech is wide and deep and not having an understanding of the basic systems is… IMO making it a non-starter for certain things.

At one point I worked as a customer support agent outsourced to Apple via the company. Apple forced us to us some very outdated browser UIs, basically for filling in forms, across maybe 4-5 different services in some cases. The machines we were given by this outsourcing company of course where Apple computers, fairly locked down.

But one thing they hadn't locked doll wn, was installing extensions in Safari, and given I had some development chops from coding a bunch in my freetime, I saw the opportunity to write a tiny extension that saved me a ton of time by merely copy-pasting stuff into the right forms and so on. Basically making the whole thing more efficient for me.

Everything was great, until the person next to me saw I had something different. Cautiously eager, I let them try the extension too, they loved it, and without thinking about it, spread it to other people in our team. Eventually, the manager and the IT team picked up what was going on, said they'investigate if I could maybe start doing those kind of things full-time instead of being a support agent, and just focus on tooling.

Fast forward two weeks, I get called into a meeting, apparently someone in the company had been "stealing" CC numbers from the customers on the calls, and since they don't think they've found the right person who did it (or something like that), the person who was known for "doing stuff to the computers" was the next possible suspect, and they fired me right there.

Eventually this firing let me find my first actual programming job, so I'm not too mad about it, but it really shows how out of touch lots of companies and people are when it comes to how computers actually work.

Technology for greed vs technology for need. Greed has its cost.

> There’s a reason why many professions have professional bodies and consolidated standards - from medicine to accountancy, actuarial work, civil engineering, aerospace, electronic and electrical engineering, law, surveying, and so many more.

Professional bodies = gatekeeping. The existence of the body means that the thing its surrounding will be barred from others to enter.

It means financial barriers & "X years of experience required" that actual programmers rightfully decry.

Caveat: When it comes to anything that will affect physical reality, & therefore the physical safety of others, the standards & accreditations then become necessary.

NOTE ON CAVEAT: Whilst *most* software will fall under this caveat, NOT ALL WILL. (See single-player offline video games)

To create a blanket judgement for this domain is to invite the death of the hobbyist. And you, EdNutting, may get your wish, since Google's locking down Android sideloading because they're using your desires for such safety as a scapegoat for further control.

https://keepandroidopen.org/

> We DO NOT have this in software engineering.

THIS IS A GOOD THING. FULLSTOP.

The ability to build your own tools & apps is one of the rightfully-lauded reasons why people should be able to learn about building software, WITHOUT being mandated to go to a physical building to learn.

To wall off the ability for people to learn how computers work is a major part of modern computer illiteracy that people cry & complain about, yet seem to love doing the exact actions that lead to the death of computer competency.