-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 - --- title: "Elegant Code Contributions" author: Greg layout: post permalink: /2026/02/elegant-code-contributions/ date: 2026-02-05 09:30:00 -0500 comments: True licence: Creative Commons categories: - ai - coding tags: - ai - coding clippy_help: It looks like you're trying to add tech debt and security vulnerabilities. Would you like help? - --- Tips for elegant contributions in the age of confident glazzing AI tooling ### Coder reviewer != slop mop The first human to read your code shouldn't be your code reviewer. ### AI writes, human owns If you can't explain every line of code you've committed then you may have introduced Trojan code (except REGEX because no one can actually explain REGEX, it's gibberish magic). ### Slop² Don't trust AI agents to write static instructions for other agents. Static instructions should be curated by smart opinionated expert humans. ### The IKEA effect The IKEA effect is a cognitive bias where humans place a disproportionately high value on ~~things~~ code they partially created. ### Slop compounds Coding patterns can spread like fire through a codebase. AI agents are an accelerant. ### AI is still glazing you Tech bros have scaled confident bullshitters that are sometimes right... tech bros have scaled tech bros not intelligence. ### Write concisely . ### Value human attention If it saves you 1 minute but costs me 5 minutes you're doing it wrong... or you don't like me. ### LLM training data is people data People interacting online rarely respond to a post saying "I don't know". So don't expect an LLM trained on Internet data to admit when it's in over its head. ### AI companies hire humans If ChatGPT could do everything Sam Altman says it can do then OpenAI wouldn't have an intern program for fall 2026. The hype is for investors not developers. ### AI may destroy humanity Never attribute to "rouge AGI" that which is adequately explained by "vibe code that ends up as a nested dependency in an early warning missile detection system" - Hanlon's razor (but for AI). ### Great code is now free But shit code is also now free and far more common. ### Default to code Asking an agent to do a programmable task is the robot equivalent of _this meeting could have been an email_. Don't burn tokens trying to convince a non deterministic machine to do a programmable task. ### MCP - Most Costly Protocol MCP was developed by a company that sells tokens. The official GitHub MCP for instance has hundreds of commands of which your agent will likely use a dozen. The rest of those commands just fill up your agents context window. There are more efficient ways to give agents access to tools. ### Warp tools for AI Don't give an agent instructions on using a tool designed for humans. Create AI specific wrappers that only expose the appropriate features. For instance an AI probably doesn't appreciate the human-readable flag. ### AI is a force multiplier `Output = Competence x AI` *Warning: `Competence` can be negative and `AI` can be a fraction.* ### Wrap APIs for AI Don't rely on your agent to deal with quota limits, back off strategies, etc. Abstract all of the complexity programmatically and then expose a simple tool for your agents to use. ### Don't trust AI in human dev environments AI agents should not be trusted with the same privileged permissions we grant trusted humans. The principle of least privilege becomes even more important given LLM jailbreaking is an infinite problem space. ### LLM providers charge by the token Don't expect brevity. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIzBAEBCAAdFiEESYClA57JitMYg1JBb8nUVLEJtZ8FAmmGTooACgkQb8nUVLEJ tZ+HUBAAnB8GfcwEd5+pFlfHApWvSqwh3gaeP8z4AL6ZXsKfUtALRtlCTgvLqtSb RtDHRhaGguISeVhkpRMqlxph826pMhmJLDf+Ihbh/HhWDB5ptwqPR7fukLpg6+yK NlcEN12nYBTfoKgxVviokni6QrLm/65S/7q6DJLVdP/WtRUCUG1VlJnjALxQW5cq TZSqLj/lDvF9DwFczJDnwBHODTLffkczrsSa0mnLO5+a8M8fW7qptoXMXMS6n8xa OsOiAqpurOCDGDkPOTEEKDhdmaOk3Ic0kkfGIPJ9u8OIQYPvj6lbT9MSaKmqU1Ba 6HdcfNyF4mo81GSk+0Gx5q+HNyzZlA6i9VbPPBs2PycarqhU075pC6jmqktyXDEN LrCE5r+gHulBEALssbPcAJa3et8URwcXxgyZjJthBQj7lDGwyJOLSiIw8IAwerce htM73W1BYjvxRqrriPk5Z46jrPBbVPV7oj3g8hpnJWDso2kA32IxrtB4+yyFxiGc FJWQsI+BKBytep8ArWIGMHmNvEHIuesScDUabaJm6mKxAWtLItOnp8DjFbIb/Gy8 PBAMwhxSVnq9ZM6P9iUsYdEtGf80lzB8vpywE0h0gBjxbSHO8RqJj/zcvh1ziyRR Zw0m61+FljWKcX17RczosOmARzYt3hV+JkzUtq1GYsZ12VVfE1A= =Dxal -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----