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“Vibe Coding” vs. Reality

cendyne.dev

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Re: “Vibe Coding” vs. Reality

#71

Post by trashtensor »

I've been messing with this for a few days now so I'm not going to claim to be any sort of expert but as someone who has been coding for more than 20 years I do appreciate the set it and forget it nature of being able to throw q developer or whatever at a relatively simple problem that I'm curious about and let it crank away for half an hour while i'm working on something else. I've tried it on a couple of reasonably small and well defined problems, mainly focusing on python, and it works surprisingly well. It'll run the scripts and fix errors and can suggest prompt improvements. I've also tried it in a large codebase with much less success, so YMMV.

Also it is important to be able to review the code because it could be the case that it looks mostly correct but has some subtle errors in it that can mislead you. For example I was trying a couple of different ways of computing some indices that have a bunch of variables and one way had a mask that made no sense involved. "Vibe coding" without being able to check the work of an LLM is almost certain to go poorly, IOW.

Re: “Vibe Coding” vs. Reality

#72

Post by SkyPuncher »

> Cursor has some sort of "concise mode" (archived) that they'll turn on when there is high load where the model will still be rated at the normal price but behaves in a useless manner. This mode will omit details, drop important findings, and corrupt the output that is being produced.

This is a real problem that I have experienced on and off. It's getting to the point where everyone on my team is actively looking for alternatives. Generally, I've found Cursor works correctly after business hours. But, it's increasingly giving absolutely useless responses during business hours.

-----

That being said, I agree with many of the author's observations. However, for me, it's not really a breaker. It's not much different than working with an intern or junior engineer. If you ask them to do too much all at once, they come up with bad solutions. Plus, they have a tendency to make "dumb" decisions.

For me, I've found solutions for nearly all of the listed issue. Much of it comes down to being diligent during code review (like you should). For example, the Typescript issue, I come back later to have it fix it.

Specs are the one that still baffles me. It's absolutely terrible at writing proper specs. In particular, it falls into a really bad cycle whenever there are errors. I don't have a solution for this one.

Re: “Vibe Coding” vs. Reality

#74

Post by mellosouls »

Etheryte wrote: post #24

At this point in time, we're following the time corporate got on the outsourcing craze step for step. It had all the hype, hands off, cheaper for the same work, faster to market, every other argument you've all certainly heard. Then the reality hit. The whole discussion around LLM coding agents feels indistinguishable.

This is not about "LLM coding agents".

It's about those agents being (mis)used in the very specific blind faith approach of "vibe coding", not least due to the hype merchants and grifters picking up the phrase and running with it shorn of the original cautionary notes about it being useful for bringing a bit of fun back into non-serious coding.

Criticizing the idea (and conflating it with the wider field of LLM coding agents) without understanding that original context is not really any better.

Vibe-coding LLM coding agents, which - when used properly - are brilliant for use in serious code and are here to stay.

Re: “Vibe Coding” vs. Reality

#75

Post by matsemann »

CharlesW wrote: post #54
Etheryte wrote: post #24

At this point in time, we're following the time corporate got on the outsourcing craze step for step. It had all the hype, hands off, cheaper for the same work, faster to market, every other argument you've all certainly heard. Then the reality hit. The whole discussion around LLM coding agents feels indistinguishable.

> Then the reality hit. Are we talking about the reality where the size of the global software outsourcing market is $618 billion and growing? https://groovetechnology.com/blog/software-development/outso...

The market where I live is far larger than it was 15-20 years ago. So both have grown, the outsourcing didn't kill local as predicted.

Re: “Vibe Coding” vs. Reality

#76

Post by SkyPuncher »

bobxmax wrote: post #3

Vibe Coding is a trigger word for devs who insist it's a pointless exercise because it doesn't do 100% of the job. Devs don't seem to realize that's not the point - the point is you can hire less devs if you're only worried about the remaining 20%. Also this article is immensely distracting.

I'm currently 2x to 10x as productive with Cursor. The larger the project, the lower my multiplier.

However, on small tasks and bug fixes, it often fixes the bug before I've even root caused it. It's amazing when I can focus on throwing it information about the bug then have it think in the background while I continue researching. In a surprising number of simpler cases, it one-shots the fix and eliminates any need to root cause (this is a bit easier when it's a feature you understand intimately).

Re: “Vibe Coding” vs. Reality

#77

Post by exe34 »

booleandilemma wrote: post #53
Etheryte wrote: post #24

At this point in time, we're following the time corporate got on the outsourcing craze step for step. It had all the hype, hands off, cheaper for the same work, faster to market, every other argument you've all certainly heard. Then the reality hit. The whole discussion around LLM coding agents feels indistinguishable.

My first job in the industry was cleaning up a large codebase created overseas by indian developers. Maybe the new kids today will break into the industry by cleaning up messes that have been generated by AI.

the next version of AI will simply make it into a bigger mess.

Re: “Vibe Coding” vs. Reality

#80

Post by jocoda »

My, very limited experience with LLM assisted coding is that it depends... For basic frameworks done in something like Python it is very good, but not perfect, yet. But the iteration cycle to get to where you want to be is still faster than doing the whole job manually and I see this as a big win.

For more esoteric fast changing languages/frameworks it has me chasing my tail in a chain of code updates where each fix breaks something in the n-1th, or n-2th version. Sometimes it's deprecated code, or it halucinates functions that would be valid if your were using a a different language of framework. And sometimes simple coding errors.

But it will get better, a lot better.

The main benefit is that it will let a invested non programmer client build a functional framework prototype and then combine that with a list missing features that a more skilled programmer can flesh out to a first cut solution.

For the first time we 'might' get better requirements with an actual working model instead of having the implementor doing most of the requirements as a first pass from a high level hand wavy requirement. I think we're going to see some amazing tools for this.

What I don't see it doing is creating original algorithms to solve things being done for the first time.

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