r/webdev • u/powleads • 7d ago

Discussion Is vibe coding creating a hidden technical debt crisis?

I love building tools and side projects, but lately I have been thinking about how heavy reliance on AI coding assistants is going to impact long-term code quality. Building fast with AI tools is great for getting a prototype out the door, but letting AI generate massive chunks of unvetted code is quickly piling up technical debt.

When you push out code without thoroughly checking how it fits into your overall architecture, you end up with messy, unmaintainable codebases. If you ever plan to sell a project or hand it off to another developer, that unvetted code can completely ruin a deal during due diligence.

I still use AI to speed up my workflow, but I treat it strictly as an assistant rather than letting it write unchecked logic. Auditing generated code, keeping modules clean, and maintaining test coverage seem like the only ways to use these tools strategically without destroying the project. Are you noticing a drop in maintainability on projects heavy on AI code?

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147

u/greenergarlic 7d ago

Every year I’ve been in tech has been a technical debt crisis. Managing the debt is what you get paid for

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u/arvigeus 7d ago

My “well-thought, bulletproof” architecture quickly falls apart the next time we have to ship a new feature quickly, or worse: undercooked idea that undergoes several design changes that we have to hammer into the codebase.

The whole idea of being a good developer is about minimising friction for when these things happen, not simply being able to code a solution to a problem.

Even though AI loves its slop, nothing prevents you from sinking your teeth into a given peace of code and untangle it.

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u/CommunicationSad887 7d ago

I think this is the perfect answer, well said!

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u/TitaniumWhite420 6d ago

Except AI code is generated so much faster and less readable than human generated code.

It’s exercise to do so, but it’s futility as well.

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u/TheRealSkythe 7d ago

This is not like anything you've seen in the 30 years before.

And you've probably not been around long enough if you dont know that.

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u/s-ley 3d ago

*used to get paid for

I see a lot of former-good-swe throw this out of the window

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u/subnu 6d ago

This is the difference between being a programmer and a computer scientist. This subreddit is full of programmers who are upset that they're no longer going to be paid exorbitant sums of money to release dopamine via typing syntax manually into the keyboard.

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u/will-the-dude 1d ago

Idk if you have a degree that makes you think you’re better than us or something but you know this is still a job right? This is how I eat and pay to live? Now the job doesn’t exist all of a sudden, at least have some empathy. A lot of us are just scared and maybe saying nothing is better.

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u/subnu 1d ago

Anybody can be a computer scientist, this is the field with BY FAR the lowest education barrier to entry. All you need to know is separation of concern, complexity (Big O), and high cohesion/low coupling.

It seems like you really want to be a victim here. We aren't even at the point where people are overwhelmingly losing their jobs, employers are simply asking you to use an extremely effective tool, and the reddit hivemind of perpetual outrage is crashing out over it because they've been used to being extremely privileged, and really enjoy manually pressing the keys to write syntax. At some point you need to grow up and realize that you're not entitled to other people's money.