HACKER Q&A
📣 zaksa

Do we need a stronger process for vetting code?


Now that writing code is largely automated, I've seen Github being filled to the brims with slop, and it feels like the overall quality of everything produced with code (either the tooling or the software itself) has been getting worse. Pre-AI, times were a bit simpler: You looked at the stars, looked at the issues, poked around the code, and gave the repository a chance. Today there's just way too much stuff being produced. I don't see this changing in the future, so I was thinking that I'd be cool to make some spin out of it: My idea is to create a data aggregator based on https://github.com/explore that is targeted towards developers. Think of it as the "Rotten Tomatoes" of code. Here are a few ideas that I've been bouncing around: Repositories having different scores and being organized by tech stack, language, etc. Certified classics by category and technology.

Each repository has a scorecard. - its dependencies (too much - potential bloat) - issue progression over time (number of issues, time to close issues) - by maintainer count and reputation (changes hands often - bad). - by funding

Allows users to set their own rating, giving a more nuanced distribution than just github stars. It also allows users to blacklist repositories, and exposes an MCP server that allows one's own agents to know what to avoid.

What do you think?

  👤 vouaobrasil Accepted Answer ✓
I think the main difficulty you'll face is that there are too few eyes on so many repos. The good thing about movies, which isn't the same with code as you pointed out, is that they are time-consuming to make and not many are made in comparison to repositories.
👤 wseqyrku
> Now that writing code is largely automated,

If majority of people like to generate code it doesn't mean writing code is automated, it means a lot of people like to generate code. If you want to build on top of slop go ahead, but do not expect it to "improve" the slop experience, (and please forgive me to assume) with even more slop.