Ask HN: Dealing with Vibe Coding Depression? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Dealing with Vibe Coding Depression?

#21

Post by TimTheTinker » Thu, Jun 05, 2025, 6:31 PM UTC

aristofun wrote: post #20

TimTheTinker wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That doesn't mean there is no beauty in the craft of writing the code etc. But it's not the key part. For folks who love software, it absolutely is a key part. Donald Knuth titled his book series "The Art of Computer Programming" for a good reason. It taps into the human creative impulse under a compelling set of technical constraints. Generative AI in any form has the effect of forcing us toward the vanguard, to c…

> For folks who love software, it absolutely is a key part. Those are the folks from early days when it was more about math (which is an art) and exploration rather than about actual software _engineering_. If you're building new algorithms, new computers etc. - yes, your product is the tool itself. But this is a very limited case these days. Unfortunately many folks drag this attitude in their business software doma…

I think you may be missing my point. I'm not conflating products and engineering tools, but talking about how art and beauty (as Platonic ideals) can hopefully be preserved or resurrected in the current environment. Engineering "for the sake of it" without a view to business needs does carry pitfalls like you mentioned - that's not what I'm promoting. Leave that to universities and hobby projects (which are very important -- absent wealthy patrons of the arts, the best of culture in a civilization arises from small communities of learning and creative leisure).

But just like an architect designing a beautiful bridge that becomes a landmark, with the right management and product-market fit, it can be possible to profitably build beautiful software products for people. There are real, profitable businesses that do this, and people love their software.

People enjoy and value beautiful things; as a software business culture we ought to value creating them.

Re: Ask HN: Dealing with Vibe Coding Depression?

#22

Post by andrei_says_ » Fri, Jun 06, 2025, 12:51 AM UTC

jf22 wrote: post #17

When the loom came out the people who loved weaving by hand stopped being as valuable. That's where we are right now. The best bespoke hand-crafted coders are far less valuable than they used to be. It sucks for the weavers who loved to weave, but this is the consequence of technological progress.

I am starting to find these comparisons bothersome.

It’s not a loom, or a car, or a printing press or python vs punch cards.

It is very different, and the facility “Management” is hoping to replace, is decision-making, and not some predictable mechanical repetitive tasks.

The thing itself is more similar to an idiot savant with no memory or understanding. Getting it to do the right thing is sometimes easy, sometimes more difficult than doing it yourself, and sometimes catastrophic. Letting it on without supervision is almost guaranteed catastrophic.

“Management” trying to replace people with it is a function of perceiving people as cogs.

Re: Ask HN: Dealing with Vibe Coding Depression?

#23

Post by andrei_says_ » Fri, Jun 06, 2025, 12:52 AM UTC

jf22 wrote: post #16

taklimakan wrote: post #9

I don’t get it. Is anyone forcing you to vibe code? If you don’t like vibe coding, don’t do it. The time you save when vibe coding is offset almost 1:1 by the time you need to verify the AI’s output for all but the most trivial applications. And even then, were you happy writing trivial code?

> The time you save when vibe coding is offset almost 1:1 by the time you need to verify the AI’s output I haven't experienced this at all, especially when you can ask the AI to generate unit tests based off of specs. I'm manually testing AI output twice as much as if I wrote the code myself, but I'm generating code 10x faster so I'm still gaining massive amounts of productivity.

What language is this and what context?

Re: Ask HN: Dealing with Vibe Coding Depression?

#24

Post by deverman » Fri, Jun 06, 2025, 5:21 AM UTC

I'm just trying to keep a frame of mind that there are new problems to solve and bigger problems can be solved by smaller teams of people.

Re: Ask HN: Dealing with Vibe Coding Depression?

#25

Post by nuc1e0n » Fri, Jun 06, 2025, 9:28 AM UTC

hamhead27 wrote: post #7

There is a sad reality and truthfulness is that you're probably experiencing that dread for nothing. Tech is moving forward but there is an underlying hype thesis that has really yet to become a reality. The creators at these companies are making all their bets that the switch between interpolate and extrapolate will happen at sometime in the very near future. If and when that fails to materialize (as I think you cou…

The more America fails financially the more the AI doomer narrative is pushed. Big tech needs there to be value gains to justify themselves. The American stock market is mostly down to them now.

Re: Ask HN: Dealing with Vibe Coding Depression?

#26

Post by jf22 » Fri, Jun 06, 2025, 4:07 PM UTC

andrei_says_ wrote: post #22

jf22 wrote: post #17

When the loom came out the people who loved weaving by hand stopped being as valuable. That's where we are right now. The best bespoke hand-crafted coders are far less valuable than they used to be. It sucks for the weavers who loved to weave, but this is the consequence of technological progress.

I am starting to find these comparisons bothersome. It’s not a loom, or a car, or a printing press or python vs punch cards. It is very different, and the facility “Management” is hoping to replace, is decision-making, and not some predictable mechanical repetitive tasks. The thing itself is more similar to an idiot savant with no memory or understanding. Getting it to do the right thing is sometimes easy, sometimes…

>“Management” trying to replace people with it is a function of perceiving people as cogs.

Is it? Isn't this just what happens in a capitalist system?

Re: Ask HN: Dealing with Vibe Coding Depression?

#27

Post by d--b » Sat, Jun 07, 2025, 2:54 AM UTC

You could argue that photography didn’t kill all painting or that Ikea didn’t kill all manual woodworking.

But photography created a lot more images and ikea allowed people to own a lot more furniture.

If we draw a parallel, it means that we’re going to see a lot more production of tech stuff. Like tailor made video games for a specific individual, custom apps for local businesses / institutions, etc.

This could lead to a lower dependency on the big platform, and perhaps to actually more work.

Impossible to be sure though