Stop Slopware

LLMs aren't like a screwdriver at all, the analogy doesn't work. I think I was clear. LLMs aren't useful outside the domain of what they were trained on. They are copycats. To really innovate on software design means going outside what has been done before, which an LLM won't help you do.

If AI tools produced good code that was well-designed, nobody would fucking care. Maintainers of repos want good submissions that solve issues, they don't care if you wrote it on a notepad first or generated it in 5 minutes, if it fixes the thing, and is of good quality, it would be accepted.

AI submissions are getting hate because the code isn't good and isn't designed well and the person submitting it would also know that, if they understood what the LLM wrote. Hell, maybe they could even re-architect it into something worth submitting in the first place.

I use AI tools semi-frequently, to get answers, to riddle problems, all kinds of stuff. However if you just punch directions into ChatGPT and copy/paste the answer, you are not growing as a dev, you are not learning, and yeah your code is probably shit. Not sorry.

Edit: And I feel it's an under-observed point that AI-dependent devs constantly try and hide the fact that they are doing exactly that: copying from ChatGPT, because they also know it's shit and they will be judged. So just... STOP DOING IT.

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 like the group I was part of was just a mirage, a historical accident. Maybe craft-painters felt the same way about the camera.

Using Claude to submit PRs to huge open source projects is stupid, for sure.

But if I need a quick tool, like a secret Santa name picker, I’ll just have Claude build it, push it to a repo, link the repo on some PaaS and have a working, deployed app in 20 minutes. No ads, no accounts & no signing up to random websites. I can build it exactly like I want it and include fun Easter eggs for my family.

Building it myself would take 2-3 hours, and the code quality would be drastically better, but that just doesn’t matter.

After a certain point, I think "craft" becomes a meaningless and self-flattering scapegoat, similar to how people use "taste" or "courage" as an excuse to make boneheaded decisions. Most software customers aren't buying software because it's tasteful or impressively crafted, but because it fills a gap in their workflow. People who obsess over polish often end up missing the forest for the trees.

Plus, code-based meritocracy flat-out doesn't exist outside the FOSS circle. Many of the people you know are clocking-in at a job using a tech stack from 2004, they aren't paid to recognize good craftsmanship. They show up, close some tickets, play Xbox during on-call and collect their paycheck on Friday.

The people who care might be self-selecting for their own failure. It's hard to make money in tech if your passion for craft is your strongest attribute.