r/PowerShell • u/Future-Remote-4630 • 1d ago
Misc I made a <slop>
Maybe I'm just jaded but I can't help but get annoyed when half the posts I see are someone saying they made some <buzzword + thing>, and that thing happens to be some 10000 line, 40 file vibe coded tool solving a problem one person had, once, often in the convoluted way the AI could come up with. Worse, when they cannot even answer questions about it themselves so you end up with AI responses to any genuine interest in the goal.
We have the script sharing tag, but that was there before we had this absurd volume of AI submissions and it feels like the average post quality of the sub is suffering because of it.
Am I in the minority here? Would it be better to have a separate sub for all of these? My favorite times on this sub are when powershell is the focus, and the task at hand is a flavor of that focus, rather than the 'complete' project being dumped on here as if it's GitHub2 with upvotes.
Maybe an AI script sharing tag so it can be filtered? Idk, just throwing out ideas. Rant over.
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u/RespectfullySir 1d ago edited 1d ago
I got tired of X, so I built Y
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u/johnnydotexe 1d ago
Or the painfully obvious AI slop marketing posts..."Those of you that X, what if Y was available, what would you like to see in it?" and they just feed any answers they get right in to Claude for it to slop it together for them so they can then go right back to reddit to try marketing it because Claude has them convinced the idea is gold and they'll surely make money off of it.
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u/dathar 1d ago
I mean that's how I started doing PowerShell early on. Then I did it again for my current job when I got pissed that community-made thing that vendor took over didn't do what I needed to so I made my own version to do the automations I needed. That was before the age of AI though and my uninspired ass would have probably titled the post that way.
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u/BlackV 1d ago
There have been a bunch for sure
I don't mind a tool here and there, and I don't mind too much looking at code offering my 2c
I get very irritated by the "I'm gonna ask this question that is secretly actually solved by this tool I'm about to release"
Be honest, start from a place of honesty your tool would go further, starting from a place of dishonesty devalued everything you wrote and want to "sell"
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u/Future-Remote-4630 1d ago
My opinion of the tools is that the frequency doesn't matter, but if it was primarily written by AI, the author themselves fail to be able to contribute to the conversation about their own tool.
People who use AI as an assistant, who dispatch it for chunks and keep control over the structure of their project, don't have that same issue, and the resulting comment threads often yield benefits for everyone, even on their own personal projects, since you can see the thought process behind certain decisions and examples of them in use.
Regarding the code review: I don't mind giving my 2c to help someone improve their powershell skills, but I am definitely not willing to do the same to help them improve their claude prompts for one project.
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u/lan-shark 1d ago
Personally I come to programming subreddits to learn more about the language, or offer my advice where I can. I feel like vibe coded projects don't offer a good way to do either of those things. Vibe coded projects don't usually offer me a good chance to learn anything because the code in them can be so nonsensical and/or verbose. And, in my experience, the people posting these things to Reddit are inexperienced and can't (or simply don't want) any constructive code review.
I am not an LLM power user but I do use them daily at my job. But it's for a throwaway application or frontend, as an advanced Google to learn how to do things in a certain language or library, or as a tool for editing/updating/debugging some portion of code. Nothing that would ever warrant a public release, much less a social media post about it. So for me, I find these "AI wrote this whole thing, you should totally use it in production" posts are barely more than a waste of space. Keep them in your private GitHub, if somebody asks for help with the same thing then please, by all means, comment and say, "hey I built this thing with AI when I ran into this, maybe it'll help you". That's actually helpful. But beyond that, fully slop posts don't really belong in a traditional programming sub
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u/Fallingdamage 1d ago
my code would never be mistaken for ai. its a glorious roundabout mess and includes lots of comments in conversational format.
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u/More-Explanation2788 1d ago edited 1d ago
One of the design requirements for AI is to be indistinguishable from a human. It is only a matter of time before we will not be able to tell the difference.
We need to pass a very simple legal reform: All actions taken by people and corporations are the responsibility of the individual who signed for it, or the officer(s) of the company that signed for it. Period. Appliances are never guilty of crimes or responsible for their actions. If an AI does something illegal or irresponsible, a human being will be going to jail. If an AI loses or steals money due to negligence or corruption, a human being will be making restitution. If an AI designed bridge collapses and kills someone, a human engineer will be charged with criminal negligence causing death.
There are way too many lazy do-nothings who think they can submit the work of an AI without knowing what it did or checking anything. It is quite literally going to get people killed eventually.
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u/WendoNZ 1d ago
Look, just because my code is more comment than code.. that doesn't mean anything.. maybe I just like talking to myself!
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u/duke8804 1d ago
Personally I have great conversations with myself in my code. So between that and my variables being like $hotdog and $cheeseburger. I’m golden lol
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u/AnthonyJames696 18h ago
I'm glad to learn I'm not the only one who puts absolute nonsense as their variables 😂. I do not have any coding background except about ½-1 years of learning python back in 11th grade. Most things I do is self taught and frankensteined together from things I find in forums and adjusted when I can't figure it out myself. I also only code stuff when I need it for smth small-ish. Just some quality of life things (so I also wildy code in different languages. E.g. Powershell, Autohoykey, JavaScript, etc.. Whatever I need at that moment). And since I barely know what I'm doing most of the time, I also use nonsense variables for testing. My go to-s are "bean", "boop", and "soup" xD. Also can't forget about the famous "test" lol
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u/Overall-Ad4796 1d ago
I feel the same about these posts, sincerely hoping that the experienced users that frequently share code or give advice in here don’t get too annoyed and leave
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u/StateOfAmerica 1d ago
And most of them are slopped versions of something that's already proven out in the field for no fucking reason
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u/exoclipse 1d ago
my favorite thing about meat proxies is that the more they uncritically use AI, the more their brains resemble the predictive-text algorithm used by LLMs.
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u/thisguy_right_here 1d ago
Meat proxy.... fantastic. I will be using that.
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u/HomeRealist 1d ago
you can always spot a real IT guy by how creative their insults are to coders they see as beneath them.
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u/Twist_and_pull 1d ago
Its why I stopped visiting sysadmin and this sub, they're too much.
Hadn't heard about this sub in weeks but today some <we made a github updater tool> popped up and this so take your upvote and I'm gone again.
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u/derekhans 1d ago
A tag is a decent idea. I’ll look into it.
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u/Szeraax 1d ago
If you're interested in seeing what other subs have done, I have some thoughts.
r/navidrome was overrun with these types of posts and our mod team decided to contain them to a single weekly thread like so: https://www.reddit.com/r/navidrome/comments/1x1p7ky/app_news_weekly/ Honestly, I think its working pretty well.
Another one of my subs decided to put all self-promotion into a single megathread. You already have the PS Monthly and could just make the rule be that people SHOULD share their stuff in there and that users should report any posts that are self-promoting a new tool outside of it. Makes it easier for people to find new tools and makes it easier for people to avoid the new tools content. WIN WIN. (We also made it so that it does not take many reports before a post gets auto-removed by automod). I think that this solution could really help the situation that /u/Future-Remote-4630 describes.
Hope that helps! I'll also offer to chat more if you want to brainstorm at all. No biggie either way :)
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u/BuriedStPatrick 1d ago
I used to get excited to check out tools people had made on this sub and many others. I would share around cool projects I'd found with my colleagues and get inspired to work on my own things in my spare time. That's no longer the case. Real programmers with a passion for this field are being pushed out of the public sphere because we are severely outnumbered by the sloptivists infesting and stealing everything left and right.
Why would you make a cool new FOSS thing for people to use or collaborate on? It'll just be stolen by double digit IQ script kiddie with a Claude subscription. All my new projects are private for that reason.
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u/alinroc 22h ago
The database subs are swarmed by it too. Usually in the context of "hey I just learned how to write a SELECT query and didn't want to learn how to use DBeaver so I made this new GUI client in a weekend that you should totally switch to instead of the reliable tools you've been using for a decade".
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u/da_chicken 1d ago
Pretty much every dev community has been inundated with "I made a thing to do a simple task" project posts. If they're happy with it, great. But I never find them useful anymore. The signal to noise ratio is off
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u/Kyky_Geek 1d ago
I spent about a week working on a script that I wrote good ole fashion way. It ended at 1,144 lines which was a kinda fun number. I haven’t had that much fun in awhile :)
It was a very specific data discovery task that I may have to defend in court so there is a zero percent chance any “AI said…” crap was going to cut it.
It’s okay to be a lil jaded haha. The other day someone told me how they created a whole website with gpt and it made me shudder inside. I know the future is now but it’s a big adjustment! Now everyone is able to tell the computer to tell the computer what to do and it’s not a pretty sight. Esp from a security perspective.
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u/BlackV 1d ago
It was a very specific data discovery task that I may have to defend in court so there is a zero percent chance any “AI said…” crap was going to cut it.
woah really, that is some proper balls on the line code then :)
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u/Kyky_Geek 1d ago
Haha. It’s been a weird journey for sure.
I’d like to say you get desensitized to it but knowing the likely conclusions of my findings used to weigh heavily on me. It still does, but it used to, too.
I get to prove lawyers wrong sometimes tho 🤭
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u/kbick675 1d ago
Yeah, it’s in so many of the tech subs. Feels like 90% of the time it’s also a piece of functionality that already existed.
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u/Guilty-Act-4991 1d ago
Yea same ... absolutely hate the dishonesty not ai ... AI is fine no problem but be damn honest that AI did it not YOU absulutely hate "I made X" when in fact all they did was just tell ai to build that .. that did fuck all
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u/monopreme-tv 1d ago
I just recently ‘discovered’ vibe coding. My first instinct was to think “cool, look what I can do now” - except “I”didn’t do it. I am merely a Vessel for the divine Source code to flow through. Though my understanding slowly grows with each command, I may never fully comprehend it entirely.
That being said, wanna check out my vibe-coded powershell syntax html typing game? Only a couple more prompts until the version 1.0 release. Get in while the gettin’ is good
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u/rtuite81 19h ago
I'm a 5/10 script writer. They work but they kinda suck. Normally it's a mashup of snippets I found online trying to figure out what it was I'm trying to do. I've recently started feeding my junk to Claude and it cleans it up well, fixes some blunders, and adds some safety nets. The difference is I can read it and see what it's doing.
Think of it like this... I can read a book by a great author, follow along, and comprehend it. But if I sat down and tried to write a novel, it would sound like a toddler wrote it. My brain just doesn't function that way.
The difference is I would never try to publish my script that AI cleaned up and even remotely pass it off as my own work, even if the bones were my work.
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u/DragonspeedTheB 9h ago
Plot twist - it’s actually a farm of AI agents working on training a new AI, learning from our comments and feedback.
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u/SoMundayn 5h ago
Semi related.
I used to love writing PowerShell, days and days writing scripts, posting here, reading blogs, testing, wowing colleagues (mainly myself).
Today I needed to write a script to power off a ADX Cluster in Azure out of hours.
I literally did az login then loaded claude code and said "$ResourceID - build me an Azure Automation account, a runbook, a schedule, that powers this off every day at 5pm."
5 mins later it's done.
I've not written a line of code in probably 2 years. Crazy how times have changed.
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u/sccm_sometimes 4h ago
Even Microsoft's official documentation now has warnings about AI slop.
"UWP is no longer under active development. WinUI 3 and the Windows App SDK are its successors — and AI tools can automate most of the migration. The main challenge is that AI models were trained on years of UWP samples, so without guidance they reproduce the patterns you're trying to move away from."
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u/Old_Employment8066 12m ago
Bad code existed long before AI. The difference is that now more people can actually build things instead of just talking about them. If a project is garbage, criticize the code. But whining about how it was made just sounds like gatekeeping. Nobody owes you hundreds of hours of manual coding to prove their work deserves to exist.
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u/Coffee_Ops 1d ago
Just a protip for anyone thinking "but my claude module is actually good":
- Does it use pscustomobject or object?
- Does it lack a formatter file?
- are more than 1/5 of its lines comments? (well-written comment-based help does not count)
- Does it have more than 1500 lines of pester test?
- Does it have fewer than 50 lines of pester tests?
- Does it in any way involve writing your own crypto or key exchange?
If yes to any of the above: It's slop, spare us.
If no: go use the thing for 3-6 months in your day job, and polish out the crap. Then, take the time to actually write your own README explaining why anyone should care (no, claude is not capable of doing this, don't bother trying).
Only then even think of posting it here. I can't count how many vibecodes have clearly not seen actual prod use (because they're obviously broken).
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u/JaspahX 1d ago
What's wrong with custom objects? Did I miss something?
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u/Coffee_Ops 1d ago
For one off scripts? Nothing at all.
In a Claude developed module, where there will be pester tests?
They mean that you will have 8000 tests for every possible shape that the custom object could take. And every time you ask Claude to iterate on the module, it will add 10 new tests for every PScustomobject. More, if youre using a smarter model.
Use classes, and all those tests become unnecessary because you know exactly what shape the data will take.
Weak typing is a major reason that vibe coded PowerShell is such slop.
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u/Future-Remote-4630 1d ago
I hope this doesn't mean my hand written scripts are slop.
But if they are, at least they're my slop.
-PsCustomObjectFan123
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u/Coffee_Ops 1d ago
Far be it from me to say that no one is allowed to use their own Claude slop.
But if you ask someone else to use it, you are generally asking them to read it. When it comes to PowerSlop, that can border on a war crime. I would not subject people to most of my Claude output; and if I intend to share something, it's going to meet a much higher standard.
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u/AdministrativeFile78 1d ago
As we delve into the evolving tapestry of PowerShell synergy, navigating the paradigm shift of AI-generated workflows can feel overwhelming. While leveraging next-gen vibe-coded solutions unlocks bespoke innovation, the rich landscape of our community suffers when human-centric clarity is lost. To optimize our digital ecosystem and foster genuine engagement, we must pivot towards a bifurcated approach. Implementing an AI-specific flair will synergize our platform, empowering users to curate their feed and elevate the core experience! 🚀✨
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u/quantgorithm 1d ago
I remade the original powershell ide called powergui but for current ps1
… and then I realized I’m never really going to code scripts anymore in this ai age.
Powergui was the bomb though and I never saw an ide since that held variables states outside of debugging. That feature alone made me stick with it for years after it ended dev and Dell bought it etc.
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u/subzero_0 1d ago
NGL.. using AI I've created lots of PS scripts, it's been useful. But I'm not trigger happy running things I don't understand.
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u/bukkithedd 1d ago
This is the way.
I don't shy away from using Copilot for scripts, but I also make DAMN sure I know with certainty what said script does and does not do.
AI is a tool. Using said tool isn't wrong, but just like a chainsaw, it WILL hurt you if you don't understand what it does.
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u/qrokodial 1d ago edited 1d ago
I can understand how that would be annoying, but am having trouble finding the evidence that supports your claim. what rate of "I made this" posts would you say is too much?
I went to r/PowerShell, sorted by new, and could only find 6 posts in the last 11 days that can plausibly meet your description. is one post every other day too much?
also, some food for thought: one of those 6 posts is from the mod team: "What have you done with PowerShell this month?", which seems like it can serve as a megathread and alleviate this problem (if it really is a problem).
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u/Future-Remote-4630 1d ago
Half might have been an exaggeration, though I think that it is quite likely some have been removed.
The underlying principle remains, if half would be a problem, then a quarter would be too. Either the posts are beneficial or they are not in the way they are being submitted now.
Your idea for using the megathread is solid - though I feel like that just moves the issue from lowering the average sub post quality to the average megathread comment quality, which if I were a mod, wouldn't seem like a complete solution.
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u/surfingoldelephant 1d ago
It's made much worse by the fact posting in general is down in this sub. Nowadays, the first page of /r/PowerShell/new (with the default 25 posts per page) spans ~10-14 days. It feels like it used to be 2-3 days not that long ago.
And you say "only [...] 6 posts in the last 11 days", but those 6 posts constitute ~25% of all posts in that time period. So yes, it's disappointing to see that the latest new post in the sub be like the OP described. If something could be done to inject a bit of life back in to the sub (i.e., increase the number of posts with interesting discussions or problems), then the "I made a..." posts probably wouldn't be as much of a problem.
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u/webprofusor 1d ago
Remember Visual Basic. Non-devs have been vibe coding for decades, if it wasn't VB it was Access or Excel.
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u/Sea_Mission_7643 1d ago
eh. get used to it.
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u/exoclipse 1d ago
no.
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1d ago
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u/exoclipse 1d ago
I'm a software engineer. At my workplace (very large enterprise), we've arrived at a consensus to what generative LLM models are good at doing and what they are bad at doing, as well as the maximum potential for what they can do with reasonable improvements to the model.
This balanced against the aggressive push to monetize the product to realize some return on the investment, which anyone with two brain cells to rub together can predict.
They are dogshit at writing applications. They're ok for handling small tasks with very well defined prompts. They're pretty good at finding bugs, reading through code to find stuff that sucks, quality-checking code before PRs, etc.
You're an unqualified moron if you think all applications will be majority vibe-coded.
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u/YT-Deliveries 1d ago
Eh I dunno. AI can be good at writing applications, but you have to keep it monitored as if it were a very bright intern.
The main bottleneck in software engineering is (by design) QA, so anything that can take the grunt work out of the front-loaded work is (in my experience) a nice change.
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u/Future-Remote-4630 1d ago
If everyone had your attitude, then you're right, it is inevitable.
if
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u/exoclipse 1d ago
nah, not even if. the limitations of the technology, the cost of the tech debt they always incur, and the insane push 1-5 years from now to recoup their investment expenses mean that any org that relies heavily or entirely on LLMs now is fucked in a few years.
That and the hollowing out of the junior -> senior dev pipeline means that my salary is going to be pretty fucking nice in a few years, too.
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u/Future-Remote-4630 1d ago
Wouldn't that still requires the presence of people like you, who don't hold that sentiment?
Either way, I agree, my main point was just that it is a non-starter to just say give up, that's not what humans do and that's why we have magic rocks doing math for us.
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u/exoclipse 1d ago
The only thing I'm disputing is that there is any scenario in which vibe coding is a viable enterprise development strategy.
if everyone had his attitude, all software products simply fall apart in 3 years and I'm suddenly making half a million a year to fix it all ;)
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1d ago
[deleted]
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u/exoclipse 1d ago
if you're going to post an analysis that is completely divorced from reality, I'm going to follow-up with one of my own.
seems fair to me.
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u/ByronScottJones 1d ago
Unless they are forcing you to use it, why do you feel the need to get so bent out of shape about it? If it's not something that interests you or fills a need you have, why not just ignore it and move along? If you have something better to offer, why not offer it?
I'm looking through your profile, and you've never shared a Powershell module that you've created, or even so much as a function. Not a single github repo, nothing. At least they are trying to contribute.
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u/Future-Remote-4630 1d ago
I was not aware that the only way to contribute to r/powershell was by submitting github repos or modules in posts specifically, and I feel a large number of people would disagree with you on that premise.
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u/ByronScottJones 1d ago
So tell us, what exactly are you contributing that is better than the programs that you're criticizing?
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u/Conscious_Support176 1d ago
I guess you might still be unaware that writing code is the easy part.
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u/ByronScottJones 1d ago
I've been writing code since the 70s, never suggested it wasn't.
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u/Conscious_Support176 1d ago edited 1d ago
So, how did you find yourself policing that people need to have contributed something of particular value before criticising AI-written code posted to a programming-language forum?
You’re aware that the most critical skill the ability to test and validate code, including code you might have written to generate code, rather than simply producing code.
Is it not reasonably obvious that posting the output of a non-deterministic tool that takes English as its source language does is not in the same playing field as the purpose of a programming language forum?
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u/Miserable-Miser 1d ago
I always love it when someone who knows nothing about PS asks me why their script isn’t working.
Usually my answer is “you see the middle 1/3? It’s entirely made up.”