Behind the Curtain
About Slopapalooza
A field guide written by people who like AI coding and want it to actually work.
Slopapalooza is a field guide to the most common ways AI-assisted development turns into a mess. It’s satire on the surface — a fake festival poster, a list of fake band names — and a real engineering argument underneath.
The argument is one sentence:
AI coding does not remove the need for engineering process. It increases the penalty for not having one.
Why this site exists
The same patterns keep showing up in engineering orgs that have leaned heavily into AI-assisted development without leaning equally into engineering discipline. The result: code nobody owns, nobody trusts, and nobody can safely change. The 9,000-line component is a joke, but it’s also a real thing that happens in real repos.
Slopapalooza tries to make those patterns memorable enough to be recognized — ideally before they ship.
The serious version
If you want this argument without the satire, the un-ironic version lives at Enterprise Vibe Coding. Same thesis, different costume.
Who’s behind it
Slopapalooza is built by Doug Kerwin.
Get in touch
Got a horror story, an anti-pattern we missed, or a correction? Send us a message — it goes straight to a real inbox.