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Vibe coding is the fast fashion industry of software engineering

pdelboca.me

61–70 of 74 posts

Re: Vibe coding is the fast fashion industry of software engineering

#61
post #12

Vibe coding is not a 0/1 skill. LLMs generate code as the prompt says, so when you ask what you want, you get it. If you want a specific pattern or architecture, explicitly ask for that. It works really well when you (not the LLM) drive the development.

And how many times do you have to correct that? Because I have not seen that in practice. With Opus / Claude Code it will follow instructions until it doesn't and then suddenly, in the SAME prompt/todo agent blabber, it creates a web worker instead of using Bull which it did first for exactly the same case. Sure, context overload, but this is the same prompt. And the models claiming larger context like Gemini don't fare any better (well, worse actually).

Now you might tell me; make the tasks smaller and more focused, yes, that's true, it performs better, but then i'm just faster myself coding. Most what I use CC for is exploration & frontend; generating slabs of mind numbing crap react and tailwind is fantastic. But for most other stuff, we have patterns and libs in place where i'm much faster and better than AI as it's not much code, just more logic/thinking.

Re: Vibe coding is the fast fashion industry of software engineering

#62

Whenever i try to use any of the LLMs to do code i need for work they fail miserably or sometimes it works and i scan over what theyve done to make it work and it looks absolutely like a mad man has written it. The only use i seem to get out of LLMs with my work is writing mundane brainless stuff like arrays for json responses etc which saves me 5 minutes so i can browse ycombinator and write these comments

What's "LLMs"? Free ChatGPT? Codex? Jules? Cline? Cursor? Claude Code with Opus? Tight leash with conventions, implementation plan? YOLO vibe coding?

All of the above really. I try multiple I have claude 4 sonnet subscription chatgpt pro subscription. Ive got a cursor subscription some of them are better than others but most of the time the code they write are so long winded i just do it myself. Its not bad for when i need a bit of php though

Re: Vibe coding is the fast fashion industry of software engineering

#63
post #48
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't the original definition of vibe coding asking us to "forget that the code even exists"?

It was, but annoyingly a lot of people now use "vibe coding" to mean any form of AI-assisted development. It's got to the point where if someone talks about "vibe coding" you have to confirm with them which definition they are using, because otherwise you risk people talking right past each other because they're not actually talking about the same thing.

Yes, the term isn't universally defined yet. Also, the number of available tools doesn't help here (e.g., my workflow in Cursor and CC differ). My "vibe coding" is probably different than blog post authors' "vibe coding." At my work, we have "AI in dev" meetings to discuss the topic, the variety of opinions resembles comments here, and we try to boil down where the issue is.

Re: Vibe coding is the fast fashion industry of software engineering

#64

It seems to me that the ongoing “vibe coding” debate on HN, about whether AI coding agents are helpful or harmful, often overlooks one key point: the better you are as a coder, the less useful these agents tend to be. Years ago, I was an amazing C++ dev. Later, I became a solid Python dev. These days, I run a small nonprofit in the digital rights space, where our stack is mostly JavaScript. I don’t code much anymore,…

The only "overlooked" part of "vibe coding" conversations on HN appear to be providing free training for these orgs that host the models, and the environmental and social impact of doing so.

Re: Vibe coding is the fast fashion industry of software engineering

#65
Novice programmer: AI is really useful

Middling programmer: Don't use AI. It creates bad legacy code that no one understands and is hard to debug. Machines will never write code as beautiful as true human artisans. Even if your saving time, you're actually wasting time.

Advanced programmer: AI is really useful

Re: Vibe coding is the fast fashion industry of software engineering

#66
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. I see LLM assistance as a multiplier on top of your existing expertise. The more experience you have the more benefit you can get.

Indeed, I can predict a huge gulf between pre-vibe senior engs and post-vibe lazy learners: the seniors get massive amplification and meanwhile those on the ground floor are not learning, and even gradually loose what little they did learn

I have to add that working effectively with LLMs is a skill too, mostly in terms of prompting and system level prompts to skip _most_ of the fabrication and nonsense.

They have to be explicitly told often to keep things brief, non-fiction and non-sycophantic.

Then you still need to curate responses, but less so.

Re: Vibe coding is the fast fashion industry of software engineering

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Domain knowledge is key I agree. I think we’re going to see waterfall development come back. Domain experts, project managers and engineers gathering requirements and planning architecture up front in order to create the ultra detailed spec needed for the agents to succeed. Between them they can write a CLAUDE.md file, way of working (“You will do TDD, update JIRA ticket like so”) and all the supporting context docs.…

TDD seems to be a good strategy if you trust the AI not to cheat by writing tests that always pass.

You need to keep the TDD LLM and code LLM as a "ping pong pair" with you as the curator / moderator.

Re: Vibe coding is the fast fashion industry of software engineering

#68
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is this saying that LLMs code quality is bad? > cheap, low-quality products Product quality != code quality.

"Product" is referring to the fast fashion analogy. The author is clearly saying that AI for programming and "vibe coding" will lead to bad code. Otherwise the analogy doesn't make sense. Why would AI programming lead to bad products but not also bad code?

Product in software is clearly NEVER the code, but what the code does.

Re: Vibe coding is the fast fashion industry of software engineering

#70
post #44

I think it's revealing that a group that historically values making decisions based on verifiable and accurate information is now jumping to discredit "Vibe Coding" based on rumors that are easily disproven. 1. Tea App wasn't vibe coding - It was built before vibe coding and the leak was incorrectly secured Firebase https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jul/26/official-statement-fro... 2. Replit "AI Deleted my Database" dra…

It's just human nature. Technology advances exponentially and huge leaps forward are increasingly being compressed into very short amounts of time. Just like how sages were worried about memory after the invention of writing or luddites were worried about job displacement with the industrial revolution; it is natural. What would the Italian Renaissance artists think of Photoshop? People whose livelihood and identity…

> Just like how sages were worried about memory after the invention of writing or luddites were worried about job displacement with the industrial revolution;

This is pretty exemplary of resolution loss in verbal reasoning.

Which sages were worried about memory after the invention of writing? If you refer to Phaedrus dialogue, the passage about the invention of writing is a just a story that is used to move the conversation along. By that time writing had existed for thousands of year. The dialogue is about rhetoric and learning, not about writing itself.

Luddites are also often quoted by people with a lossy compression of history. These "King Ludd" graffiti and sabotage actions are highly correlated with labor action suppression and severe enforcement of criminal acts calling for execution of laborers involved in labor organization. It was a revolt against severe oppression, not some dumb way to try and stop progress.

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