Top all-time · #20062
Doug Slater
Personal blog · slater.dev · on HN as sltrprogrammingai
Doug Slater's personal blog at slater.dev covers programming and ai. Since 2025, 3 different Hacker News readers have linked it 26 times, most often “AI: Accelerated Incompetence”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-07-17, and you can follow it by feed.
Software Engineering Leader and Mentor. Jesus follower
Most-linked posts?
- AI: Accelerated Incompetence2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-05-27
- It's Not Tech Debt. It's Tech Risk2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-04-10
What Hacker News says?
I agree with this. "Companies which overuse AI now will inherit a long tail of costs" [1] [1] AI: Accelerated Incompetence. https://www.slater.dev/accelerated-incompetence/
Comment linking /accelerated-incompetence/
on “The Myth of Developer Obsolescence”Submitted AI: Accelerated Incompetence as a story · 303 points
HN discussion> to ask a clarifying question I think one shortfall of LLMs is their reluctance to ask clarifying questions. From my own post [1]: > LLMs are poor communicators, so you have to make up the difference. Unlike a talented direct report, LLMs don't yet seem generally able to ask the question-behind-the-question or to infer a larger context behind a prompt, or even ask for clarification. [1] https://www.slater.dev/dev-s…
Comment linking /dev-skills-for-the-llm-era/
on “Why agents are bad pair programmers”Submitted It's Time to License Software Engineering as a story · 12 points
HN discussionThanks pmxi. I read that post when it trended, and it got me thinking. I then wrote a post that tries to give a framework for deciding whether to take a gig fixing vibe code. https://www.slater.dev/about-that-gig-fixing-vibe-code-slop/
Comment linking /about-that-gig-fixing-vibe-code-slop/
on “Vibe coding cleanup as a service”Submitted Who You Gonna Call as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI think tech risk is a better metaphor than tech debt. https://www.slater.dev/its-not-tech-debt-its-tech-risk/
Comment linking /its-not-tech-debt-its-tech-risk/
on “Show HN: Swimming in Tech Debt”Submitted The Optimal Amount of Slop Is Non-Zero as a story · 2 points
HN discussionFrom my relevant post last week: > AI now lets anyone write software, but it has limits. People will call upon software practitioners to fix their AI-generated code. https://www.slater.dev/about-that-gig-fixing-vibe-code-slop/
Comment linking /about-that-gig-fixing-vibe-code-slop/
on “The Software Engineers Paid to Fix Vibe Coded Messes”Submitted Why English will never be a programming language as a story · 2 points
HN discussionfrom the post: > It was reasonable to be skeptical the first time It's still reasonable to be skeptical. A few weeks ago a post was discussed here on HN [1] that asked: > What would have to be true for us to ‘check English into the repository’ instead of code? to which I replied: > Code is already the cheapest path to working, correct software. LLMs do not change the calculus because figuring out what to make is the…
Comment linking /2026/05/why-english-will-never-be-a-programming-language/
on “AI demands more engineering discipline. Not less”Submitted Why you should still type code in 2026 as a story · 2 points
HN discussionBlogged about modular code and LLMs few days ago https://www.slater.dev/2026/02/relieve-your-context-anxiety-...
Comment linking /2026/02/relieve-your-context-anxiety-with-modular-thinking/
on “Show HN: Badge that shows how well your codebase fits in an LLM's context window”Submitted Don't believe "software never fails" as a story · 2 points
HN discussionContrarian view: Why English will never be a programming language. https://www.slater.dev/2026/05/why-english-will-never-be-a-p...
Comment linking /2026/05/why-english-will-never-be-a-programming-language/
on “Learnings from 100K lines of Rust with AI (2025)”Submitted Dev Skills for the LLM Era as a story · 2 points
HN discussionLLMs are not bicycles for the mind. They are more like E-bikes. More assist makes you go faster, but provides less exercise. https://www.slater.dev/2025/08/llms-are-not-bicycles-for-the...
Comment linking /2025/08/llms-are-not-bicycles-for-the-mind/
on “After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand”Submitted Relieve your context anxiety with modular thinking as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI am also worried about "cognitive debt". I hardly remember what I had Claude do, even hours later. Back in May, I advised of a similar mitigation, citing the "generation effect" as the reason typing the code would make you remember it better: > For your next ticket or feature, engage with your LLM as you normally would to produce a design and implementation plan, but with that plan in hand, make the mechanical edit…
Comment linking /2026/05/type-your-code/
on “Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code”Submitted It's Not Tech Debt. It's Tech Risk as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI'm glad you mentioned downward market pressure on quality. I agree that is an issue. That's why I advocate for licensure of software engineering professionals, which exerts a counteracting force back up. https://www.slater.dev/2025/09/its-time-to-license-software-...
Comment linking /2025/09/its-time-to-license-software-engineering/
on “The Optimal Amount of Slop Is Non-Zero”People like this will create a net increase in software jobs. Once his software makes enough money so he doesn't have to sit in front of a computer, he will employ someone. It will initially be a gig fixing slop. https://www.slater.dev/2025/09/about-that-gig-fixing-vibe-co... People in the trades have a ruthless pragmatism that SV has forgotten. https://www.slater.dev/2025/08/oil-spills-can-create-jobs/
Comment linking /2025/08/oil-spills-can-create-jobs/
on “An industrial piping contractor on Claude Code [video]”The job when picking up a codebase made by human or machine always involves reverse-engineering the design intent from code. That's especially hard for LLM-generated code because the path to runtime was so rushed. > It's more expensive to fix code at runtime than at compile time and at compile time than at design time. Unfortunately, AI rushes people to runtime as fast as possible. https://www.slater.dev/2025/09/abo…
Comment linking /2025/09/about-that-gig-fixing-vibe-code-slop/
on “Cleaning up after AI rockstar developers”about a year ago I shared this on /r/AskProgramming: "...a Pull Request is a delivery. It's like UPS standing at your door with a package. You think, "Nice, the feature, bugfix, etc has arrived! And because it's a delivery, it's also an inspection. A Code Review. Like a freight delivery with a manifest and signoff. So you have to be able to conduct the inspection: to understand what you're receiving and evaluate if…
Comment linking /2026/02/relieve-your-context-anxiety-with-modular-thinking/
on “Every layer of review makes you 10x slower”The formal engineering disciplines are not defined by the construction vs design distinction so much as the regulatory gates they have passed and the ethical burdens they shoulder for society's benefit. https://www.slater.dev/2025/09/its-time-to-license-software-...
Comment linking /2025/09/its-time-to-license-software-engineering/
on “Agentic Engineering Patterns”