The shovelware cometh
In September of last year, I covered a post by Mike Judge arguing that AI coding claims don’t add up, in which he asked this question:
If so many developers are so extraordinarily productive using these tools, where is the flood of shovelware? We should be seeing apps of all shapes and sizes, video games, new websites, mobile apps, software-as-a-service apps — we should be drowning in choice. We should be in the middle of an indie software revolution. We should be seeing 10,000 Tetris clones on Steam.
At the time, I found Mike’s rhetorical question compelling. Not necessarily convincing, but compelling. We really weren’t seeing a flood of new wares yet. Some of us had our shovels out, but not in the numbers you’d expect for a truly revolutionary new technology1.
Fast forward to last week, when Pete Goldsmith discovered that Show HN posts per month more than doubled in the last year:
After building some things recently using LLMs and agent workflows, I was noticing more ‘Show HN’ posts. Assuming there had been a rise in folks building things, but wanting to rule out confirmation bias, I looked at the numbers.
Turns out, the numbers2 resemble HN’s favorite shape: 🏒
This, to me, looks like the canary in the coal mine; the bellwether leading the flock; the first swallow of summer; the… you get the idea.
We may soon be overwhelmed by weekend projects, adequate software, and home-cooked meals. The shovelware cometh. And it might change everything.