Baldur BjarnasonMar 4

(Following thread was prompted by people pointing out that the Bluesky dev team seems heavily into vibe-coding now and originally posted on said vibe-coded Bluesky platform that is now constantly failing.)

Over the past year, every single time one of the apps or services I use suddenly became less reliable and more buggy, I never have to look far for the "Claude is amazing and now writes most of my code" post for the devs involved.

Show threadBaldur BjarnasonMar 4

Best part? It's always somebody with years of experience. Exactly the demographic that is supposedly able to use this shit safely, but my impression is they're just as bad as the novices

This is happening IMO because of one of the fundamental issues with software dev (and this predates "AI" and was one of the themes of my first book):

Most software projects fail and most of what gets shipped doesn't work. The way the industry is set up means there is little downside to shipping broken software

Show threadBaldur BjarnasonMar 4

Few devs have a reference point for genuinely working software. Usability labs were disbanded over 20 years ago. Very few companies do actual user research, so their designs are based on fiction. Bugs are the norm

Alienation is also the norm for devs, both socially and organisationally. Whether it works for the end user doesn't cross their mind. Whether the design fulfils business needs is not their problem. Bugs are a future problem. Ship insecure software and patch it as user data gets stolen

Show threadBaldur BjarnasonMar 4

Devs are so disconnected from the output of their work that many of the norms of the industry are outright illegal: there's a good chance that if you follow popular practices for a React project, for example, you'll end up with a site or product that violates accessibility law in several countries

Few devs would even know where to begin to look to answer the question "does my software work for the people forced to use it?"

Show threadspinnyspinlockMar 4

@baldur years of industry "leaders” with new design patterns, a dozen development methodologies with the (sometimes misguided) intention of doing better software. Went from jokes about places using LOC as a productivity metric to bragging about how much (and only) code can be output

Deeply unserious industry

Show threadAndy in IndyMar 4
@spinnyspinlock @baldur You could easily be describing the entire culture of capitalist management since WW2. Endless people management “strategies” that are just elaborate rain dances to avoid saying “pay good money, hire enough people to do the work, and treat them all with respect”.
Show threadspinnyspinlockMar 4
@naptowncode @baldur It was not what I meant (valid interpretation though), some people do legitimately want to write good software. Or so I thought
Show threadAndy in Indy
@spinnyspinlock @baldur Oh I agree! I think most devs want to write good code (and most managers want to manage well) but we’re all human and everybody wants a shortcut around the methodical work that is easy to describe but hard to do consistently well. Plus there’s bandwagon effect, learned helplessness, and a million other psychological traps that drag us away from the plain “just eat your damn vegetables already” style of work.
Mar 4 at 1:23pmWeb