I liked the author's chocolate analogy although not in the way they intended. Yes it's a known reproducible tech and yes Hershey dominates there. Hershey is also the worst crap you can buy for the money.

I don’t disagree with the article, but it’s very much from the perspective of a modern “move fast and break things” PoV.

That’s how Hershey Kisses are made.

I’ve always been more of a Lindt kind of person. Not top of the heap (around here, the current kick is “Dubai Chocolate,” with $20 chocolate bars), but better than average.

I try to move quickly, and not break anything. It does work, but it’s more effort, takes longer, and is more expensive (which is mainly why “move fast and break things” is so popular).

I’m looking forward to “Artisanal” agents, that create better stuff, but won’t have a free tier, and will require experienced drivers.

I thought the same thing. That was the aha moment for me that explained the past few months of confusing back and forth about whether AI code is any good.

Apparently, hundreds of millions, maybe billions, of people like Hershey's chocolate (I believe there's a difference in the American version and the Asian/European version, all are bad but the American is beyond sickly sweet and awful). Fine. I will try not to judge, but my god is Hershey's chocolate just awful. I wish I could share a proper dark with every one of those people and tell them to let it melt rather than chew it, to see how amazing chocolate can be (I make it by hand from Pingtung beans that I roast and shell myself, but you can get excellent "bean to bar" chocolate in every major city these days). I wish I could share a cup of proper cappucino from beans roasted that day with everyone that gets a daily Starbucks. I wish I could share a glass of Taihu with everyone that ends the day slamming a couple Buds or Coor's.

But, I guess because it's cheap, or easy, or just because it's what they're used to and now they actually like it, people choose what to me is so terrible as to be almost inedible.

I guess I'm like a spoiled aristocrat or something, scoffing at the peasants for their simple pleasures, but I used to be a broke student, and when my classmates were dropping 5$ a meal on the garbage dining hall burgers, I was making simple one pot paella-like dishes with like 1$ of ingredients, because that tasted better and was healthier, so, I don't know.

Anyway, vibecoded apps probably are bad, but they're bad in the way a Hershey's bar is bad: bad enough to build a global empire powerful enough to rival a Pharaoh, so powerful that it convinces billions that their product is actually good.

In a way the author is right. AI apps will be like hersheys - uninspiring junk. Personally I don’t eat hersheys. If I need chocolate I have good Swiss or Belgian brands that are much better.

Coming back to software - I believe the author is correct. We will be able to standardize prompts that can create secure deployments and performant applications. We will have agents that can monitor these and deal with 95% of the issues that happen. The other 5% I have no clue. Most of what industry does today needs standarized architecture based on specs anyway. Human innovation via resume driven design generally overcomplicates things.