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Vibe engineering

simonwillison.net

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Re: Vibe engineering

#641

Post by throw234234234 »

deanCommie wrote: post #212
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 don't think OP thinks his skills are useless per se now, but that the way to apply those skills now feels less fun and enjoyable. Which makes perfect sense - even putting aside the dopamine benefits of getting into a coding flow state. Coding is craftsmanship - in some cases artistry. You're describing Vibe Engineering as management . And sure, a great manager can make more of an impact increasing the productivity…

This is the heart of it. Most "craft" industries that have not yet been disrupted by technology or been made "more efficient" tend to coincidentally be the ones that are in demand and pay well -> and that society generally wants "good X" of. e.g. Plumbers, Electricans, previously software engineers. Efficiency usually benefits the consumer or the employer, not the craftsmen in most industries. There's a reason people are saying right now to "get a trade" where I am.

If you look at what still pays well and/or is stable (e.g. where I live trades are highly paid and stable work) its usually the crafts industry. We still build houses for example mostly like we did way back (i.e. much of the skills are still craft, not industrialized industry) when and it shows in the price of them.

Re: Vibe engineering

#642

Post by codyb »

anthonypasq wrote: post #623
selcuka wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry, it's probably only the impostor syndrome. Your development skills are still relevant. Think of agents as junior developers that assist you in coding tasks, whom you constantly need to mentor, review, and correct.

You think theyre still gonna be juniors 5 years from now? A couple years ago they could barely even write a function

The gains seem to be leveling to me but I'm not using them as much as others.

Still seems like people are saying the same things when the first Claude came out.

I can get it do stuff if I'm very specific, stand over it's shoulder, know exactly what I want, break it down into small chunks.

The thing for me is... at that point, writing the code's the least time consuming part of the process half the time.

I think for things like translating some code in JS with JSDocs to TypeScript I may give this a go. But for regular development work I'll probably skip it.

That being said... no one lets me code anymore. It's just confluence docs with Figma architecture diagrams these days. I'd probably just introduce SQL injection vulnerabilities if they let me near an editor these days

Re: Vibe engineering

#643

Post by nitwit005 »

keeda wrote: post #134

I think we should just accept that vibe-coding has now semantically shifted to mean all AI-assisted coding. Actually, it makes sense to me even when a human is interacting directly with the code, because it feels a lot like pair-programming. As such, I really am "vibing" with the AI. But then the original meaning of vibe-coding -- as in, "Take the wheel, LLama of God" -- does need a new term, because that will also b…

This is a clickbait phenomenon. People will deliberately misstate things in their headlines to get clicks and attention.

And, well, inventing new terms is also a popular way to get attention, which this author also did.

There's not point in trying to chase after shifting word meaning, if people are always going to try to shift it again.

Re: Vibe engineering

#644

Post by alickz »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #357
codr7 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still haven't seen any evidence to match these repeated claims of increased efficiency. What I have seen is reports that makes a lot of sense to me claiming it's all in the user's head.

I'm working in corporate and haven't seen it yet. The main thing I see is blogs and whatnot of people building new weekend projects with LLMs, that is, greenfield, non-critical software - the type of software that, if I were to write it, I wouldn't bother with CI, tests, that kind of thing with. Sloppy projects, if you will. But happy to be corrected - is someone using these agents in their paid / professional / ente…

>But happy to be corrected - is someone using these agents in their paid / professional / enterprise / team job?

Yes, and I find them quite useful

I don't see myself going back to the "Google + StackOverflow" approach I had used for 10 years prior (well, I can always fall back to it if necessary, but so far I haven't needed to)

My experience matches OP: my years of experience in manual coding complements the agent approach remarkably well

Re: Vibe engineering

#645

Post by wartywhoa23 »

eboynyc32 wrote: post #630
subarctic wrote: post #151

I just feel so discouraged reading this somehow. I used to have this hard-to-get, in-demand skill that paid lots of money and felt like even though programming languages, libraries and web frameworks were always evolving I could always keep up because I'm smart. But now with these people like Simon Willison writing about the new way of coding with these agents and multiple streams of work going on at a time and it so…

[flagged]

An exemplary technofascist slogan.

Re: Vibe engineering

#646

Post by ares623 »

sevenseacat wrote: post #321
ares623 wrote: post #148

What I’d really like to see is a company that completely does away with the code review step. Because if you think about it a code review is already being done by the invoker of the LLM. That way the velocity will actually be faster. It feels like at the moment most of the velocity is blocked by the outdated notion of code review. It’s also why these tools feel great in green field projects, since these ones don’t ty…

I realize this is likely being facetious, but just in case - code reviews are so much more than just 'check the syntax and style of the code'. They check the intention, check the actual functionality, find issues on the larger scale that LLMs literally can't. Yes, PRs start piling up because devs can vibe code them faster than they can be competently reviewed. This is a problem with the vibe code process, not the cod…

I was being half facetious, yes. But wouldn't the invoker of the LLM be already doing a review in that case? It just feels a bit redundant, to have engineer one do a code review of LLM's work, and then have engineer two do the same review.

Re: Vibe engineering

#647

Post by anthonypasq »

codyb wrote: post #642
anthonypasq wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think theyre still gonna be juniors 5 years from now? A couple years ago they could barely even write a function

The gains seem to be leveling to me but I'm not using them as much as others. Still seems like people are saying the same things when the first Claude came out. I can get it do stuff if I'm very specific, stand over it's shoulder, know exactly what I want, break it down into small chunks. The thing for me is... at that point, writing the code's the least time consuming part of the process half the time. I think for t…

i do love it when people opine on things they literally dont even use...

Re: Vibe engineering

#648

Post by krschacht »

hollowturtle wrote: post #454
krschacht wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren’t entertaining the possibility that some experienced engineerings are using these tools to produce incredibly high quality code, while still massively increasing productivity. With good prompting and “vibe engineering” practices, I can assure you: the code I get Claude Code to produce is top notch.

I'm experienced, I don't accept the implication that I might not be able to use these tools are their full potential and you won't convince me only because you mention an anecdotical example

Since you are convinced you’re using the tools to their full potential, the quality problem you experience is 100% the tools fault. This means there is no possible change in your own behavior that would yield better results. This is one of those beliefs that is self fulfilling.

I’ve found it much more useful in life to always assume I’m not doing something to its full potential.

Re: Vibe engineering

#649

Post by alickz »

nyantaro1 wrote: post #553
Bjorkbat wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people underestimate the degree to which fun matters when it comes to productivity. If something isn’t fun then I’ll likely put it off. A 15 minute task can become hours, maybe days long, because I’m going to procrastinate on doing it. If managing a bunch of AI agents is a very un-fun way to spend time, then I don’t think it’s the future. If the new way of doing this is more work and more tedium, then why the…

I think some people have more fun using LLM agents and generative AI tools. Not my case, but you can definitely read a bunch of comments from people using the tools and having fun/experience a state of flow like they have never had before

>I think some people have more fun using LLM agents and generative AI tools

I think I'm one of them

The rate at which I can explore new paths, or revisit old ones with a new perspective, has _exploded_ and I love it

But then I'm the kind of person who could spend hours on Wikipedia going from one page to the next, so that might have something to do with it

There's just so much to learn, I'm in my element

(Though I use agents mostly in Ask mode, or I manually review every line of code in Agent mode and never commit anything I don't understand)

Re: Vibe engineering

#650

Post by asadm »

bob1029 wrote: post #226
subarctic wrote: post #151

I just feel so discouraged reading this somehow. I used to have this hard-to-get, in-demand skill that paid lots of money and felt like even though programming languages, libraries and web frameworks were always evolving I could always keep up because I'm smart. But now with these people like Simon Willison writing about the new way of coding with these agents and multiple streams of work going on at a time and it so…

If you're genuinely already good at coding, use the LLM to go horizontal into other complementary verticals that were too expensive to enter prior. Do the same thing that the other professions would do unto yours. As an example, I would have never considered learning to use blender for 3d modeling in a game before having access to an LLM. The ability to quickly iterate through plausible 3d workflows and different des…

I can confirm this. My datapoint: I was mostly a web developer but using these "vibe" tooling I am making my own hardware board and coding for embedded, which includes writing drivers from datasheets, doing SIMD optimizations, implementing newer research papers into my code, etc.
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