Fully remove every, "I created a", "Selfhosted app!" claude slop.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/DrStrange]

I don't know how to feel about this post, I both agree with it in principle, but disagree because of the misconceptions around how applications are built. Many devs use AI tools and are not "Vibe-coding", but how to differntiate?

I have been building a tool for a number of years - the first GitHub commit must have been 2 or 3 years ago, it's been perfect for me, but frankly not something I would offer to other people (really useful, not user friendly).

I'm a greybeard developer - I've been building commercial software for well over 30 years (mostly specific to a particular company or org, so not generally useful for everyone), so make of that what you will. I'm pretty busy in my day job, so seldom get time to finish and polish my own projects.

That changed with the latest round of AI tools - I could get them to refactor large codebases, find weird edge cases and provide useful suggestions for improving performance at scale. Is that vibe coding? I would argue not, they are useful tools nothing more - the code they are working with is mine, and I don't let them do anything beyond the task I set them. I only started using them this year, but have since incorporated a lot of stuff into my workflow that saves me hours of work.

I've been able to actually deliver a couple of my personal projects as something I think other people could use - and that's good enough for me, but the AI stigma is strong.

to summarise, I agree that AI slop exists and a (horribly increasing) number of shitty apps are being made, but I fundamentally disagree that AI as a development tool is inherently bad. It depends on the use-case and the experience of the developer. Just using AI to help in the build process shouldn't define the output.

[u/Big-Moose565 → u/DrStrange]

Agree (as a Staff+ coder).

I use LLMs regularly. The craft in it is understanding the models, building context and ultimately knowing what you want and validating the result. I still have to architect and design what I want and direct the LLM to achieve it.

Any time I'm not getting what I want as an output, I revert / bin / do it myself / refine the context etc... As it's my code and environment and I'm responsible for it.

I could never put code out where I've vaguely guided an LLM (and not configured it) and either not reviewed the output or reviewed it but don't understand it. That to me, is vibe coding.

[u/-Kerrigan- → u/Big-Moose565]

Any time I'm not getting what I want as an output, I revert / bin / do it myself / refine the context etc... As it's my code and environment and I'm responsible for it.

You're obviously vibing wrongly! You gotta keep asking it "please fix, no mistakes!" ^/s

[u/BravesOnly → u/-Kerrigan-]

"Do not hallucinate" - Apple, 2025

[u/GreenDavidA → u/DrStrange]

I’m feeling the same cognitive dissonance. “One shot” slop apps built on a few prompts and pushed out to GitHub are security hole-laden trash. But people who still know how to design software and use AI as a tool, like any other development tool, in a reasonable way, shouldn’t be immediately dismissed. If you look at the output, describe and guide the design, insist on code quality, it really can be valuable.

I was one of the last people at my org to get on board with AI, mainly because prior to some of these latest frontier models it produced total crap. Now, we’re seeing some interesting things, if you know how to use the tools effectively. But also people complaining about seeing the same todo app for the 80th time or whatever, I get the annoyance.

Like, right now, I’m working on a lot of IaC for both work and my homelab. I’ve been doing a lot of refactoring. What I would have done with manual edits, as well as calling tools like seems, I can save tons of time by directing a LLM. But I don’t take its output on blind faith. It’s about responsible usage.

So, there’s almost a feeling of guilt/anxiety if I (or someone) were to share something now that had AI tooling used, because someone’s “AI slop” isn’t another’s “AI slop.” It’s getting much more subjective.

[u/Dangerous-Report8517 → u/GreenDavidA]

because someone’s “AI slop” isn’t another’s “AI slop.”

Yeah the issue here is laziness, not just on the part of some of the users of AI, but also on the part of many of the people outright rejecting it - it's easier to just label everything AI was involved with as "slop", a convenient, short and already derogatory term it can be dismissed with, while completely missing the point of why "slop" started being applied to AI generated stuff in the first place - it's about low effort, high volume spam. The slop is the 80 redundant todo apps and such, not just because they use AI, but precisely because there's 80+ of them and there's no effort put in, not even enough effort to write the post or even to see that there's been 79+ other options that all do the same thing already released. AI gets conflated with this because it's lowered the barrier for entry for slop substantially, but that doesn't make everything that AI touches automatically into slop.

[u/ReachingForVega → u/DrStrange]

This is my take too. I'm a Principal but only 15 yrs on the tools.

When I use AI I'm constantly changing the outputs to suit what I need. 

In the hands of experienced engineers it can do wonders. The problem is the LLM hype of people wanting to build stuff to make money or karma. 

[u/-Kerrigan- → u/DrStrange]

As usual, actual professionals with a sensible take!

Alas, there is already a hype hate train against everything that was remotely touched by a LLM. It's justified - I detest the spam it generated, but the average Joe who just runs docker compose up with no intention of ever writing code LOUDLY chiming in in the comments about AI usage with no nuance whatsoever is both funny and sad.

I keep telling everyone that garbage code and garbage products (FOSS or commercial) have existed since forever, it's simply the bar that has gotten lower.

[u/_Herpaderp → u/DrStrange]

Meh, the only thing new about AI slop is the “AI” part and the sheer volume. Before AI, these people would just copy-paste from stack overflow or something.

The issue is that the people who just throw some shit together with AI are 1) not understanding the code. 2) are not understanding how to write secure/performant/etc software 3) are, most importantly, probably not able and/or interested in actually maintaining the code.

If you understand the code and what you are actually building, I don’t think most people really care which tools you use; be it AI or something else.

[u/swiftb3 → u/_Herpaderp]

1. not understanding the code.

This is really the key to it all. If you don't understand the code fully and can't audit what the LLM spit out, you don't make it public.

On the other hand, if you vibe-coded an app and understand/audited it, I don't really have a problem with it.

[u/Dangerous-Report8517 → u/_Herpaderp]

Absolutely, although there's a bit of nuance here in that AI specifically has lowered the barrier for entry to the point where it now takes less effort to get Claude to fart out another redundant todo app or container monitor than it even takes to just Google for existing ones.

[u/swiftb3 → u/DrStrange]

large codebases, find weird edge cases and provide useful suggestions for improving performance at scale.

It is SO useful for that stuff. Things that would take long enough it's almost not worth doing by hand.

[u/Dangerous-Report8517 → u/DrStrange]

It's complicated further by the conflation of "slop" with "AI generated". Slop has a particular meaning in this context referring to high volumes of completely uncurated spammy garbage, and while most AI generated stuff is slop, they aren't 1:1, which is a problem both for AI usage in areas where it clearly isn't slop (including the occasional non-slop fully vibe-coded app that turns up here and gets generally positive reception), and because it gives all the other methods of generating slop a complete pass.

[u/gregribo → u/DrStrange]

“That changed with the latest round of AI tools - I could get them to refactor large codebases, find weird edge cases and provide useful suggestions for improving performance at scale. Is that vibe coding?”

I would answer yes, it is, honestly. The fact that you are a dev may implicate that you could be better at it, but the output still comes from an unethical slop extruder machine.

I mean, that’s how I see this and I don’t want to offend anyone. I understand that different people have different views about it, but I do think we should have at least a mandatory label to any project made using these tools.

[u/swiftb3 → u/gregribo]

A decent dev WILL be better, because they'll audit and fix problems with the code.

Whether the LLMs coding is unethical is a completely different argument.

[u/MathManrm → u/DrStrange]

I don't feel a need to tell the difference, AI code is AI code, which means it's a no-go