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Vibe engineering

simonwillison.net

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Re: Vibe engineering

#261

Post by aDyslecticCrow »

plainOldText wrote: post #54

A better term would be “Augmented Engineering” (AE). You want something to inspire engineers to do their best work. When you can expand your capabilities using the power of AI, then yeah, you can do your best work; hence augmented engineering . But vibing? Not so much. I guess AE could also stand for Advanced Engineering , after all the AI gives you the power to access and understand the latest in engineering knowled…

I take issue with your last sentence;

> gives you the power to access and understand the latest in engineering knowledge, on demand, which you can then apply to your work.

Gives you access to the power to access and {mis}understand the {most repaeted over the last 1-10 years} engineering {errors, myths, misunderstandings, design flaws}, on demand, which you then can apply to your work {to further bias the dataset for future models to perpetuate the slop}.

Do NOT trust AI agents. Check their work at every level, find any source they claim to use, and check its sources to ensure that itself isn't AI too. They lie beyond their datasets, and their datasets are lying more for every minute that pass.

Re: Vibe engineering

#262

Post by sally_glance »

saulpw wrote: post #222
simonw wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really sorry to hear this, because part of my goal here is to help push back against the idea that "programming skills are useless now, anyone can get an LLM to write code for them". I think existing software development skills get a whole lot more valuable with the addition of coding agents. You can take everything you've learned up to this point and accelerate the impact you can have with this new family of too…

I appreciate what you're trying to do, but for myself, I'm not depressed because my skills are less valuable. I enjoyed the money but it was never about that for me. I'm depressed because I don't like the way this new coding feels in my brain. My focus and attention are my most precious resources and vibe coding just shatters them. I want to be absorbed in a coding flow where I see all the levels of the system and ca…

Well said! Reading this I feel reminded of the early protests against industrialization and automation in other fields. Checks all the same boxes - insecurity and fear about the future, alienation towards the new tools, ...

Not saying AI is similar in impact to the loom or something, it just occured to me how close this is to early Luddite texts.

Re: Vibe engineering

#264

Post by witx »

cadamsdotcom wrote: post #120

A better term is agentic coding, agentic software engineering, etc. rather than being vibe based. My process starts from a Claude Code plan, whose first step is to write a spec. I use TDD, and enforce my "unspoken rules of code quality" using a slew of generated tools. One tiny tool blocks code which violates our design system. Another tool blocks code which violates our separation of layering - this forces the HTTP…

> A better term is agentic coding, agentic software engineering, etc. rather than being vibe based.

I prefer slop-coding.

Re: Vibe engineering

#266

Post by witx »

chucknthem wrote: post #56

Funny I'm a professional engineer and happily call myself "vibe coding" when writing code these days, it started as tongue in cheek, but now I've embraced it. Being good at vibe coding is just being good at coding, the best practices still apply. I don't feel we need another term for it. It'll just be how almost everyone writes code in the future. Just like using an IDE.

> vibe coding is just being good at coding

Having someone cook my dinner's ingredients is just (me) being a good cook ...

Re: Vibe engineering

#267

Post by bananapub »

zwnow wrote: post #255
simonw wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really sorry to hear this, because part of my goal here is to help push back against the idea that "programming skills are useless now, anyone can get an LLM to write code for them". I think existing software development skills get a whole lot more valuable with the addition of coding agents. You can take everything you've learned up to this point and accelerate the impact you can have with this new family of too…

What about the accessibility of software development? Its completely vanishing for people that can not afford to pay for these agents. It used to be a field where you could get a laptop from the scrapyard and learn from there. It feels pointless. Also agents do not invent things, the creativity part is gone with them. They simply use what they've already seen, repeat the same mistakes a person made a few years ago. I…

> What about the accessibility of software development? Its completely vanishing for people that can not afford to pay for these agents.

what do you actually mean by this? it's clearly untrue - anyone get get a laptop and install linux on it and start bashing out code today, just as they could last week and last year and thirty years ago.

do you mean that you think at some point in the future tooling for humans to write code won't exist? or that employers won't hire human programmers? or that your pride is hurt? or you want your hobby to also be a well-paid job? or something else?

Re: Vibe engineering

#268

Post by bananapub »

mystifyingpoi wrote: post #259
cadamsdotcom wrote: post #120

A better term is agentic coding, agentic software engineering, etc. rather than being vibe based. My process starts from a Claude Code plan, whose first step is to write a spec. I use TDD, and enforce my "unspoken rules of code quality" using a slew of generated tools. One tiny tool blocks code which violates our design system. Another tool blocks code which violates our separation of layering - this forces the HTTP…

> remind the model to use TDD I don't know how vibe coding works, but how does this work - is the agent actually engaging in the red-green-refactor loop, or does it just generate the result all at once?

if you ask it to, claude code can definitely write tests, then write code, then try to modify one or the other to make them pass in a loop, yes.

if you don't ask, it's much more likely to just one shot the whole thing, and may or may not get it right first time.

Re: Vibe engineering

#269

Post by pierre_vannier »

Simon,

I want to reach out since I want to express my disappointment regarding this thing you write here:

"I propose we call this vibe engineering, with my tongue only partially in my cheek."

Back in march 2025, you and I had a brief convo on X about this very term that came to my mind "Vibe Engineering":

https://x.com/pierre_vannier/status/1904933441042317821

I also mentioned it in our podcast in April 2025: https://x.com/Flint_company/status/1909946181897044195

Yesterday, I pinged you on X about this "term's paternity" in your thread without any response: https://x.com/pierre_vannier/status/1975579806495293910

You and I met in AI Engineer in SF last June and we discussed for 1 hour (not about this specifically but about AI and all).

At the very least, it could be cool to mention it in your post or newsletter since, I do think this little convo on X + our talk in SF might have just planted the seed in your head for this "invention" of yours...

I don't want to stay in history books but I think it's cool to also credit people when you iterate on their idea instead of just make the thing entirely "yours"...

Best Pierre

Re: Vibe engineering

#270

Post by cranium »

I find coding agents to be a powerful throttle on the speed dimension in exchange of quality in the general sense. With tests to ensure correctness is not compromised (not a silver bullet), linter and pre-commit for code style, the byproduct of AI code is utter verbosity. Pleads to be concise don't work – no more than the "Don't be wrong/hallucinate". In that regard, I like Blaise Pascal quote "I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter."
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