The problem with "vibe coding"

‘Vibe coding’ isn’t software engineering.

It throws away decades of software engineering principles in favour of unchecked AI output by clicking “accept all” on the output.

You would certainly NOT use ‘vibe coded’ slopware that powers key control systems in critical infrastructure such as energy, banking, hospitals and communications systems.

The ones pushing “vibe coding” are the same ones who are all invested in the AI companies that power it (and will never disclose that).

An incident involving using ‘vibe coded’ slopware is just waiting to happen.

I love this so much. It's hacky, janky, and absolutely phenomenal and life changing. This is like perfectly in the spirit of the hacker ethos. This dude scraped together pieces around him and made a useful product that solves the problems he wants to solve, the way he wants to solve them.

The code is probably garbage. You can tell the UI is weird and jumpy. He's using timed delays to manipulate the browser with keyboard keys. The whole thing would be absolutely shredded here. But it's beautiful. It's crafted for function over form with duct tape and bubble gum but it's the difference between his brother being locked helplessly alone in his body, or being able to express himself and have some level of autonomy. It's just awesome.

LLMs rule for this kind of stuff. Solve your problems and move on. The code is not so precious. You'll learn many things along the way and will be able to iterate quickly with a tireless and semi competent but world knowledgeable assistant.

Yeah, the most important part of that video is where he says: "it works well enough". I think there's lots of room for this kind of bespoke software that's fundamentally unmaintainable -- and not something anyone could reasonably afford to make with professionals -- but good enough for purpose. This seems like a great, life-changing example, but it's still subject to the same thing the article is talking about.

I've had some free time recently so I've been trying to use the various AI tools to do a greenfield project with Rails. I know the stack intimately, so it's been a useful exercise as a check against hype. While I can occasionally trust the tooling to make big changes, most of the time I find that even the small changes are wrong in some important, fundamental way that requires re-writing everything at a later time. Asking the models to fix whatever is broken usually results in an endless cycle of (very junior-like!) random changes, and eventually I just have to go in and figure out the fundamental restructure that fixes the issue.

Would this be good enough for someone writing a one-time-use, bespoke piece of software? Maybe. Would they be able to maintain this code, without having a truly senior-level ability to work with the code itself? No [1].

I'm less fearful of LLM taking experienced programmers' jobs [2], because I fundamentally think this kind of stuff plays in the same end of the market as knockoff designer goods, Ikea furniture, and the like. It makes custom software available to an entire customer segment that couldn't have afforded it before, but nobody is going to confuse it with a product made by a team of skilled professionals [3,4].

[1] But to a really inexperienced developer, it looks the same.

[2] I am more fearful of clueless business types, who think this technology obviates the need for programmers.

[3] ...but will unskilled professionals be under pressure? Maybe!

[4] ...and what about skilled people, using the same tools? My current hypothesis is they're beneficial, but ask me again in six months.

That’s ambiguous. Whats the input?

Copilot anticipating based off what you’re typing? An explicit prompt about what you want?