Run time slop

In the last couple of days I have noticed a lot of slop-shaming and slop-hating. It comes from professionals who feel threatened by AI.

They can be artists, coders, writers, patent attorneys – you name it.

Their scope of hate and shame is focused on the shit nature of AI generated slop.

Implied with that angst is their fear that it might get better; then said haters might be out of a job.

I have noticed that the source of slop is twofold: 1. The machine doing dumb shit, and 2. The machine controller doing dumb shit.

Take vibe coding for example. If the controller doesn’t notice or understand all the subtle features that make a good app, then they will stop developing before the product should be released into the wild.

Or, more specifically, they will code without a fully developed spec.

Well the software industry walked into that one; they never start with a full spec. Their job is to turn the app owner’s “spec” into reality.

Generally the app owner only understands (ironically) “the vibe of the thing”.

The software developers then use their technical expertise to turn the “product requirements” (hand waving) into a complete application specification, including the user interface, user experience, wireframes, system architecture, workflows, data structures, integrations, security requirements, error handling, testing requirements and deployment approach.

You would think they would do all this upfront, but they don’t. They do it as they go for two reasons; 1. They make more money being inefficient (it takes more time), and 2. The client only responds to tangible code – they can’t hypothetically “experience” a spec.

So the process ends up being build and improve, critique and then repeat, over and over, until everyone is exhausted and it’s “good enough”.

Vibe coding works exactly the same way. Except the vibe coder is also the owner, developer and architect, and doesn’t know when to stop or keep going.

Plus the machine is capable of introducing some really dumb architecture.

The code always runs but sometimes you wish it wouldn’t.