Opensource

Agreed that the solution to metastasized slop debt is to just rewrite it. That's kind of another way of saying that your entire codebase was written at prototype quality, except worse because of all the hidden decisions no one made.

I think the solution is a radical shift in how we test and review code. If your coworkers weren't thorough at testing and code review before 2026, then you are probably suffering right now.

I'm guessing LLM advocates want to solve this problem by throwing more LLMs at it, I.e.adversarial review bots, harness engineering, etc. And those are probably good ideas to raise the competency of LLMs, but I don't think they can replace the better judgement of humans anytime soon.

If your workplace culture already had strong testing and code review standards, then a sloppy PR is going to fail the smell test quickly.

And the biggest problem I see is simply with lazy people who don't review their own slop but expect others to review it. It's infuriating and completely unacceptable.

Assuming everyone is trying their best, there is really no substitute for getting your hands dirty and making sure you at least understand all of the code you submit and take the time to interrogate the surrounding code as well. I don't think there is a hard rule to know that you've adequately "digested" and refined the LLM output. But even before LLMs, I used to review my own code and iterate to make it more readable. It's like writing prose: you read, edit, re-read, until it's good.