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Vibe code is legacy code

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Re: Vibe code is legacy code

#81

Post by worldsayshi »

andy_ppp wrote: post #57

I think most software is extremely buggy and it’s about to get much worse… just today several comments just disappeared from YouTube, did they even get written there? Uber has a whole feature about upgrading to Uber Comfort - it’s never worked once for me just gives an error. Three have managed to not take PAYG top up automatically for the nth time. Google’s UI is broken everywhere, loads of sites including John Lewi…

> I’m definitely not expecting AI to make the way we build things better.

There's a certain chance that this development will force our hands at inventing new ways to handle code verification though?

Re: Vibe code is legacy code

#82

Post by genewitch »

mr_donk wrote: post #61

Don't you think the next step is a programming language that isn't even meant to be human readable? What's the point of using an LLM to generate python or Swift or whatever? The output of the LLM should be something that runs and does whatever it's been asked to do... why should the implementation be some programming language that was designed for humans to grok? Once that's true the idea of it being maintainable bec…

We're seeking angel investors for our startup that does this, we train models with "assembly" that does specific things and also complete "programs"; the end goal to prompt and it outputs executables. It's farther along than quantum computing at solving real problems, for instance, it can factor "15".

this is like the third time i've mentioned this on HN (over a year.) Apparently everyone else is too busy complaining or defending Claude Code to notice.

Re: Vibe code is legacy code

#83

Post by TrackerFF »

I think that in the near future, code itself will become abstracted away. High-level programming code will simply become the assembly or machine code of today.

Interesting times ahead for sure.

Re: Vibe code is legacy code

#84

Post by ridruejo »

jes5199 wrote: post #38

a meme I heard 15 years ago is: What’s the definition of “Legacy Code”? It’s code that has business value. (otherwise you’d just delete it and move on)

Yes, if your code does not live long enough to become legacy ... the project failed. All good code is (or will be) legacy code by definition. Most companies and projects die because nobody cares about them, not because they were difficult to maintain.

Re: Vibe code is legacy code

#85

Post by benatkin »

cortical_iv wrote: post #54
codingdave wrote: post #17

> We already have a phrase for code that nobody understands: legacy code. Wow, no. Bad misunderstanding of what legacy means. Long-lived organizations all eventually go through tech renovations, where they re-platform their business functionality onto more modern systems. But sometimes, the cost/benefit analysis to that re-platforming doesn't make sense... yet. The pieces of the business still running on the former p…

I wouldn't get too persnickety about definitions. There are lots of arguments about what 'legacy' code means. you are throwing around the term quite a bit without really giving any definition at all. 'Code that nobody understands' is fine as a quick and dirty pointer. Martin Feathers, in the most popular book on legacy code, defines it as code without tests. This is not a good definition at all, but it shows just how…

The post is trying to define vibe coding, so the definition of things is highly relevant.

Re: Vibe code is legacy code

#86

Post by adriand »

khaledh wrote: post #73
mr_donk wrote: post #61

Don't you think the next step is a programming language that isn't even meant to be human readable? What's the point of using an LLM to generate python or Swift or whatever? The output of the LLM should be something that runs and does whatever it's been asked to do... why should the implementation be some programming language that was designed for humans to grok? Once that's true the idea of it being maintainable bec…

It might even get further. I imagine a day where AI would generate an executable neural network that models (and is optimized for) a specific problem; i.e. kind of a model that runs on a neural network runtime or VM. Who cares what the NN is doing as long as it's doing its job correctly. The big catch, though, is the keyword "correctly" and I would add "deterministically" to it, in order for users to trust it.

I think it will just be the AI. “Hey AI, be a CRM please.” Done.

Re: Vibe code is legacy code

#87

Post by worldsayshi »

user3939382 wrote: post #47

When you have 100+ tables and 100k+ loc you’re incapable of the context needed to write features without bugs which is why we have tests. LLMs are capable of like 5% of the context you are: Full context > human context capacity > LLM context capacity. We should all be able to agree on this and it should settle the debates around the efficacy of vibe coding.

I agree and we should be sceptical in ways we really aren't right now. But I also think that it is interesting to figure out when "vibe-like" coding works and how it can be made more useful.

It doesn't, as you say, work for large and complex contexts. But it can work really well for automating parts of your work flow that you otherwise wouldn't have bothered to automate. And I wonder if there are more ways where it can be useful where the context can be narrowed down enough.

Re: Vibe code is legacy code

#88

Post by starkparker »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #67

A story about a non-technical friend: friend vibe coded a SaaS last year and started generating revenue with almost no marketing; all word of mouth and inbound in a niche industry. Used Replit and Supabase to build the thing; I am still really impressed by what he was able to do given how complex the app ended up becoming as he interacted with customers. What I think happened: there are two incumbents in this space t…

> Was it worth it? Yes, it is terrible, shoddy, insecure code, but he proved out a viable business with just a few hundred dollars of investment.

How much is it costing him to hire someone to reimplement his idea correctly?

Re: Vibe code is legacy code

#90

Post by drdrey »

cpursley wrote: post #49

I don't agree with this, my code quality is much better now. But you have to stay on the LLM's ass in terms of guidance and review it all (this is a given). I think part of it is the LLMs writes more "standard" code instead of getting creative with architecture, etc. It helps to create guides and correct context, proper test coverage just as you would if working with other people.

> review it all (this is a given)

that's great but that's not what vibe coding is though

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