this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2026
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Have you ever found a GitHub project or anything that seemed nice and tempting to install until you dug a bit deeper?

What are some red flags that should detur anyone from installing and running something?

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[–] kescusay@lemmy.world 62 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Evidence of vibe-coding. Em dashes and emojis sprinkled throughout the documentation? Code with inline comments pointlessly describing some change, as if you want to know what that block of code used to do more than what it actually does?

It's vibe-coded garbage by someone who doesn't know how to code. Stay far away.

[–] osanna@lemmy.vg 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] kescusay@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, that... I feel really bad for anyone who trusted and implemented it. The sheer level of exposure with that was mind-blowing. I mean, an endpoint you could hit and just... Get all the API keys?

For anyone who doesn't know, this write-up is a good one: https://gigcitygeek.com/2026/03/08/huntarr-api-security-risk/

Long story short, a vibe-coded security nightmare for anyone foolish enough to trust it.

[–] SchwertImStein@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 hours ago

the fucking bouncing arrow at the bottom of the page is insufferable

[–] Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 2 days ago (1 children)

inline comments pointlessly describing some change, as if you want to know what that block of code used to do more than what it actually does?

Oh, shit, am AI.

[–] trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Same, but only after my boss decides to change the functionality for the third time in half a year.

[–] Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago

Exactly. I worked on a interface where the elements where shift under conflicting business interests. The comments where a log of dates, person, and what they asked for as we worked on our side to build a case against the insanity.

The comments listed not only what it clearly did but also what it had previously done. Then inevitably something comes in hours before a launch window and that part does not get its comment updated.

[–] Cantaloupe@lemmy.fedioasis.cc 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Omfg Gemini loves to add tons of comments on already self explanatory code. It’s super annoying.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I have a solution to that:

🌈✨ Stop using AI to code. ✨🌈

[–] Tja@programming.dev 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That ship has sailed. The question is how to use AI to code, for every project there's a sweet spot and it rarely is 0% or 100%.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

You really don't need to. Nobody is forcing you.

And if they are, seriously considering finding another place of work.

[–] dreamkeeper@literature.cafe 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Good luck finding a tech company that isn't forcing devs to use AI.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Uh, I'm working at one.

That was quick.

[–] vala@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 hours ago

Are they hiring?

[–] dreamkeeper@literature.cafe 1 points 9 hours ago

And? I didn't say it was impossible. I said "good luck"

[–] Tja@programming.dev 0 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I very much enjoy using AI for all the biloilerplate, test cases, suggestions, etc. It really makes me more productive, hard metrics behind it. Nobody is forcing me to, they just provide the license and let us use our judgment.

I honestly can't think of a project where 0% AI would be better. For 100% maybe a very trivial PoC, but even that would require at least a code revision.

So, as with many things, use in moderation is fine.

[–] kescusay@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's almost certainly also making your code worse.

It's not impossible to use AI effectively (although I would argue it's impossible to use large "frontier" models ethically, as the companies making them are burning the planet down to power the process), but you have to be extremely vigilant and thoughtful about what you're using it for, and you have to review every single line of code it produces, or you're going to miss bugs and you're going to lose skills.

A good way to test yourself is to see if you can still scaffold out an application by hand. Doesn't matter what... A to-do list, some buttons, whatever. Just test yourself to see if you can still do it.

If you can't, then you've lost the skills necessary to be certain that what you're producing with AI is actually good.

And if the idea of testing yourself like this makes you uncomfortable? Then AI isn't a tool you use, it's an addiction.

[–] Tja@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I mean, I do leet code semi-regularly, so I'm not too worried about getting rusty. Writing tests is boring as hell, the AI does a decent enough job for at least 90% of them.

[–] kescusay@lemmy.world 0 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Leet code is good for making sure you still have a good grasp of programming conceptually, but I don't think it's good for testing your own practical skills.

Seriously, just take an hour or two to scaffold out something new. Doesn't have to be complicated, just something to confirm for yourself that you can still do it. The only rule is to do it without AI.

When I did it myself, it was after months of my work requiring me to use AI, and there was a moment at the start where I was tempted to just fire up Copilot and tell it to do the work, which - of course - would have defeated the purpose. It was that moment where I realized I was addicted, and needed to go cold turkey.

Now I do the bare minimum with AI I'm required to at work, and focus on crafting my code carefully, by hand as much as possible. And it shows. My code quality has improved.

[–] Tja@programming.dev 1 points 1 hour ago

What do you mean by scaffolding something new? If it's writing all the boilerplate for the framework and dependencies, that's exactly what I don't care about. I use AI now and copy paste in the past.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] Tja@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Points per sprint, features shipped, test coverage. Defects remain unchanged.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Code quality? Maintainability down the line? Numbers for those aspects yet?

[–] Tja@programming.dev 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

It's been more than 3 years since we started, and the metrics are stable, slight improvement even but that could be more experience or better models or anything. No apocalypse.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 1 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

Happy that it's working out for at least a small margin of people. 👍

There's always the many ethical aspects as well, of course.

[–] Tja@programming.dev 1 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

The ethics are debatable, but there's not turning back, there's plenty of open source models even that do a very decent job, so we will need to learn to deal with the reality. We never hired juniors anyway, but companies that did apparently have stopped, that can't be good.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

In my opinion, the ethics are clear problems. There are way too many ethical issues for me to even consider using AI right now. I would never have a clear conscience using AI. Using AI as a service responsibly is impossible right now IMO.

[–] Tja@programming.dev 1 points 1 hour ago

I don't see it that bad. Specially open source models. Agree to disagree I guess.

[–] alakey@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago

Emoji ridden repos just scream scam to me, too. I feel like people who genuinely want to make an app and actually keep it maintained wouldn't resort to AI slop code or even a description.