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Vibe coding cleanup as a service

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Re: Vibe coding cleanup as a service

#101

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

It's a bit strange that Karpathy's "vibe coding" ever gained traction as a concept, although perhaps only among those without enough experience to know better.

As I understand it, what Karpathy was referring to as "vibe coding" was some sort of flow state "just talk to the AI, never look back" thing. Don't look at the generated code, just feel the AGI vibes ...

It sounds absolutely horrific if you care even the tiniest bit about the quality of what you are building! Good for laughs and "AGI is here!" Twitter posts, maybe for home projects and throwaway scripts, but as a way of developing serious software ?!!!

I think part of the reason this has taken off (other than the cool sounding name) is because it came from Karpathy. The same idea from anyone less well known would have probably been shot down.

I've seen junior developers (and even not so junior), pre-AI, code in this kind of way - copy some code from someplace and just hack it until it works. Got a nasty core dump bug? - just reorder your source code until it goes away. At minimum in a corporate environment this way or working would get you talked to, if not put on a performance plan or worse!

Re: Vibe coding cleanup as a service

#102

Post by jlokier »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #60
flir wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think specialising in brownfield has always been a thing. If anything, it's greenfield that's the rarity.

Thinking of retired COBOL programmers that still have a market...

There's still a market, but when I looked into COBOL work out of curiosity (I've never been anywhere near it in real life), the salaries I found were surprisingly low, compared with common modern languages.

Perhaps the old adage "it's getting hard to find X employees [at the price we are willing to pay]" applies.

That surprised me because I've seen articles and heard podcasts for years where they've said COBOL programmers are well paid due to scarcity, though never quoting amounts.

Re: Vibe coding cleanup as a service

#103

Post by DevDesmond »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #92
scorpioxy wrote: post #10

I have been taking on "rescue" projects for a while through my business. Previously, the barely-functioning code was usually being generated via outsourcing agencies but it seems the new source is now going to be LLMs. I imagine it will be the same set of issues really. Just a different way of cost cutting measures. There can be good reasons to take shortcuts but, in my experience, the problems start when you're not…

One of the issues with vibe coding vs. outsourcing agencies is the sheer volume of code it can produce in a short amount of time. I vibe-coded a simple helper script. If I wrote it myself it would have been 1/3rd the lines, not covered most edge cases (some of which were completely irrelevant, some of which actually useful), and it would have taken me way longer than just checking if the vibe-coded code works (this w…

I like to keep a personal recipe book of prompt modifiers. For bash scripting I often write my prompt and then copy-paste the following to prompt:

``` When making edits to the script, ensure the script remains

- Idempotent - Functional after a fresh install of a virtual machine

Additionally, keep things stupid simple and avoid:

- Unnecessary error checks - Defining colors and custom logging functions - Bells and wistles - Backups - Branching Paths - Script Arguments ```

I find it helps cull back the LLM 's overenthusiasm for abstractions.

Re: Vibe coding cleanup as a service

#104

Post by hatmatrix »

liampulles wrote: post #6

I wonder if vibe coding is a bit like DIY plumbing. You can do it yourself a bit and then later when water starts gushing all over your bathroom you hire an emergency plumber at a high fee. You learn a little more for next time.

It's an apt analogy. It's like the realtor is under pressure to sell the house so does a quick and dirty DIY plumbing. Then when the house is sold you hire a real plumber to fix it right, hopefully before the gushing disaster.

Here, founders demo something that attracts the investors' or customers' attention - then they can clean it up later.

Re: Vibe coding cleanup as a service

#105

Post by abxyz »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #101

It's a bit strange that Karpathy's "vibe coding" ever gained traction as a concept, although perhaps only among those without enough experience to know better. As I understand it, what Karpathy was referring to as "vibe coding" was some sort of flow state "just talk to the AI, never look back" thing. Don't look at the generated code, just feel the AGI vibes ... It sounds absolutely horrific if you care even the tinie…

For many non-technical people, their relationships with software engineers were producing horrific results. Vibe coding is an indictment of what we’ve been delivering. That a vibe-coded disaster is in any way desirable reflects poorly on us. The branding by Karpathy is cute but irrelevant to its success.

I know people running vibe coded startups. The software quality is garbage. But it does what they want. And that’s all they care about for now. Until a time when software quality impacts their business more than losing control does, they’ll keep vibe coding, rather than hiring a software engineer who bastardises their ideas.

A garbage version of the thing you want is better than a perfect version of something you don’t want.

Re: Vibe coding cleanup as a service

#106

Post by stoneyhrm1 »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #101

It's a bit strange that Karpathy's "vibe coding" ever gained traction as a concept, although perhaps only among those without enough experience to know better. As I understand it, what Karpathy was referring to as "vibe coding" was some sort of flow state "just talk to the AI, never look back" thing. Don't look at the generated code, just feel the AGI vibes ... It sounds absolutely horrific if you care even the tinie…

Like it or not vibe coding is here to stay, I too don't agree with the concept but have told people in my org that I've 'vibe coded' this or 'vibe coded' that. To us it just means we used AI to write most of the code.

I would never have it be put into production without any type of review though, it's more for "I vibe coded this cool app, take a look, maybe this can be something bigger..."

Re: Vibe coding cleanup as a service

#107

Post by jstummbillig »

Lu2025 wrote: post #86
liampulles wrote: post #6

I wonder if vibe coding is a bit like DIY plumbing. You can do it yourself a bit and then later when water starts gushing all over your bathroom you hire an emergency plumber at a high fee. You learn a little more for next time.

It's worse. With plumbing, at least you can see what you are doing. Vibe code? One day, it just breaks and you don't know why.

Unless, of course, there is a better AI at a future point, which is able to easily spot and correct the more underlying problems.

Re: Vibe coding cleanup as a service

#108

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

abxyz wrote: post #105
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #101

It's a bit strange that Karpathy's "vibe coding" ever gained traction as a concept, although perhaps only among those without enough experience to know better. As I understand it, what Karpathy was referring to as "vibe coding" was some sort of flow state "just talk to the AI, never look back" thing. Don't look at the generated code, just feel the AGI vibes ... It sounds absolutely horrific if you care even the tinie…

For many non-technical people, their relationships with software engineers were producing horrific results. Vibe coding is an indictment of what we’ve been delivering. That a vibe-coded disaster is in any way desirable reflects poorly on us. The branding by Karpathy is cute but irrelevant to its success. I know people running vibe coded startups. The software quality is garbage. But it does what they want. And that’s…

Using AI doesn't necessitate "vibe coding" - there are smart ways to use AI, where you are managing and structuring the process, as well "vibe coding".

I guess the problem is that AI now allows non-programmers to program. It would be a bit like giving everyone a scalpel and they now either consider themselves to be surgeons, or give it a go regardless since now they can.

I'm not sure where you are getting software engineers that are "bastardising" your ideas?! You may want to look elsewhere, or pay for someone better !

Re: Vibe coding cleanup as a service

#109

Post by chubot »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #101

It's a bit strange that Karpathy's "vibe coding" ever gained traction as a concept, although perhaps only among those without enough experience to know better. As I understand it, what Karpathy was referring to as "vibe coding" was some sort of flow state "just talk to the AI, never look back" thing. Don't look at the generated code, just feel the AGI vibes ... It sounds absolutely horrific if you care even the tinie…

Yes definitely, but I'm pretty sure that he was just saying vibe coding is POSSIBLE and a fun thing to try, to see how far you can get (which is true, it can do some surprising things)

Not that companies should literally try to "vibe code" production software

Two publishers and three authors fail to understand what “vibe coding” means - https://simonwillison.net/2025/May/1/not-vibe-coding/

( I think Karpathy addressed what he meant in this video, though I forget the details: Software Is Changing (Again) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCEmiRjPEtQ )

The phrase got totally taken out of context, probably because it's what people WANTED to believe. They wanted to believe that the hard thing was now easy, and they could make/save a lot of money that way

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