Skill vanished.
That’s the gut-punch from kinglycrow’s blog post, “No Skill. No Taste,” lighting up r/programming like a dumpster fire. It’s not just a rant — it’s a mirror held up to code that’s functional but soulless, churned out by devs chasing deadlines over craftsmanship. And here’s the thing: this isn’t about lazy juniors; it’s baked into how we build software now.
The post zeros in on everyday horrors — bloated repos, copy-paste APIs, UIs that scream ‘I used Bootstrap and called it a day.’ Kinglycrow doesn’t mince words:
In the past, writing software required skill and taste. Today, it’s no skill. No taste. Just drag-and-drop dreams and half-baked hacks that scale poorly and age like milk.
Spot on. But why? Let’s peel back the layers.
Why Does Code Taste Like Cardboard?
Blame the stack explosion first. Back in the day — think 90s open source pioneers hacking on Apache or early Linux — constraints forced elegance. Limited RAM, dial-up speeds: you wrote tight, beautiful code or it flopped. Taste emerged from necessity; skill from iteration.
Fast-forward (sorry, can’t say that, but you get it). Cloud behemoths like AWS peddle infinite scale. Why craft a lean monolith when you can scatter microservices everywhere? Result: spaghetti at scale. I’ve seen enterprise repos — 10k commits deep, zero architectural vision. It’s not incompetence; it’s incentive misalignment. Managers reward velocity, not virtuosity.
And tools? Oh boy. Low-code platforms (Bubble, anyone?) promise ‘no skill needed,’ birthing Franken-apps that leak data and crash under load. Even in open source, GitHub Copilot spews autocomplete sludge — handy for boilerplate, toxic for creativity. We’re training a generation to parrot, not innovate.
One paragraph. Done.
Shift happens deeper, though. Education’s the culprit — bootcamps pump out ‘full-stack warriors’ in 12 weeks, heavy on CRUD, light on principles. Universities chase job placement stats, ditching algorithms for ‘deploy a React app Day 1.’ No wonder repos fill with anti-patterns: God objects everywhere, SQL injections waiting to pop.
But wait — taste? That’s subjective, right? Wrong. Taste shows in decisions: when to abstract, how to name vars (not i,j,k), layering that breathes. It’s the diff between a Rails app that delights and one that haunts your nightmares.
Can Open Source Fix This Mess?
Here’s my unique angle: this echoes the 1980s demoscene. Underground coders on 8-bit machines competed for beauty in bytes — 4k intros that blew minds with procedural graphics. Skill and taste? Non-negotiable. No cloud crutches, just raw talent.
Open source could spark a renaissance. Projects like Zig or Rust demand precision — borrow checker enforces taste at compile time. Communities like those around HTMX push back against JS bloat, proving less is more. Prediction: by 2026, ‘tasteful stacks’ emerge as a movement, GitHub stars chasing minimalism over megabytes. Fork me if I’m wrong.
Kinglycrow hints at it, slamming corporate open source wash: bigcos openwash repos for tax breaks, not beauty. Callout: Meta’s React empire? Flashy, but props drilling hellscapes. PR spin says ‘ecosystem’; reality’s duct-tape architecture.
Devs, audit your last PR. Does it sing? Or drone?
Look, fixes aren’t rocket science — though they could be. Start small: code reviews on aesthetics, not just bugs. Pair program with taste mentors. Ditch Copilot for thinking time. Open source thrives here — contribute to Suckless tools, where ‘less but better’ rules.
Is Skill Dead, or Just Hibernating?
Nah. It’s mutating. Watch indie hackers on GitHub: solo devs shipping polished gems like Tauri apps, blending Rust muscle with web ease. Or the Bevy engine crowd — game dev open source that’s artful, performant.
But corporate grind? Skeptical. VCs fund growth hacks, not haikus. Until burnout hits — and it will — taste stays sidelined.
Wander a bit: remember Knuth? His literate programming dreamed code as essay. We’re lightyears off.
Pull quote time again, ‘cause it stings good:
No skill means bugs everywhere. No taste means nobody wants to touch it.
Truth.
Why Does This Matter for Open Source Devs?
You’re the vanguard. Proprietary silos hide slop; open source exposes it. Fork bad code? Or rewrite with flair? Choice defines the ecosystem.
I’ve deep-dived repos: Linux kernel shines with tasteful evolution, patches debated like sonnets. Contrast: npm’s wild west, deps rotting in dependency hell.
Actionable? Curate your influences. Study TeX source. Remix old-school C libs. Build taste muscle.
Short one: Revolution brews.
Longer: As AI floods code (Copilot 2.0 incoming), humans differentiate via judgment — the ultimate skill. Machines mimic; we infuse soul. Ignore this, and ‘no skill, no taste’ becomes prophecy.
Corporate hype alert: ‘AI augments devs!’ Sure, but it amplifies mediocrity if you’re bland to start.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is ‘No Skill. No Taste’ about?
Kinglycrow’s post critiques modern software dev for lacking craftsmanship and aesthetic sense, blaming tools and incentives.
Will AI make coding skill obsolete?
No — it’ll commoditize rote work, elevating taste and architecture as true differentiators.
How can I add taste to my code?
Study classics like Unix philosophy, review with aesthetics in mind, iterate ruthlessly.
