Professional software developers don't vibe, they control • Hacker News Board

Re: Professional software developers don't vibe, they control

#81

Post by ipdashc » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 10:28 PM UTC

throw1235435 wrote: post #69

simonw wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how I can prove it, but ~25 years ago building software without open source sucked . You had to build everything from scratch! It took months to get even the most basic things up and running. I think open source is the single most important productivity boost to our industry that's ever existed. Automated testing is a close second. Google, Facebook, many others would not have existed without open source…

Indeed it did; I remember those times. All else being equal I still think SWE salaries on average would of been higher if we kept it like that given basic economics - there would of been a lot less people capable of doing it but the high ROI automation opportunities would of still been there. The fact that "it sucked" usually creates more scarcity on the supply side; which all being equal means higher wages and in ou…

> ex big tech

I mean, this seems like a pretty big thing to leave out, no? That's where all the crazy high salaries were!

Also, there are still legacy places that more or less build software like it's 1999. I get the impression that embedded, automotive, and such still rely a lot on proprietary tools, finicky manual processes, low level languages (obviously), etc. But those are notorious for being annoying and not very well paid.

Re: Professional software developers don't vibe, they control

#82

Post by sanufar » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 10:38 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #78

_cenw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is anyone else getting more mentally exhausted by this? I get more done, but I also miss the relaxing code typing in the middle of the process.

I think there are two groups of people emerging. deep / fast / craft-and-decomposition-loving vs black box / outcome-only. I've seen people unable to work at average speed on small features suddenly reach above average output through a llm cli and I could sense the pride in them. Which is at odds with my experience of work.. I love to dig down, know a lot, model and find abstractions on my own. There a llm will 1) no…

I think for me, the difference really comes down to how much ownership I want to take in regards to the project. If it’s something like a custom kernel that I’m building, the real fun is in reading through docs, learning about systems, and trying to craft the perfect abstractions; but if it’s wiring up a simple pipeline that sends me a text whenever my bus arrives, I’m happy to let an LLM crank that out for me.

I’ve realized that a lot of my coding is on this personal satisfaction vs utility matrix and llms let me focus a lot more energy onto high satisfaction projects

Re: Professional software developers don't vibe, they control

#83

Post by remich » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 10:38 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #78

_cenw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is anyone else getting more mentally exhausted by this? I get more done, but I also miss the relaxing code typing in the middle of the process.

I think there are two groups of people emerging. deep / fast / craft-and-decomposition-loving vs black box / outcome-only. I've seen people unable to work at average speed on small features suddenly reach above average output through a llm cli and I could sense the pride in them. Which is at odds with my experience of work.. I love to dig down, know a lot, model and find abstractions on my own. There a llm will 1) no…

I get what you're saying, but I would say that this does not match my own experience. For me, prior to the agentic coding era, the problem was always that I had way more ideas for features, tools, or projects than I had the capacity to build when I had to confront the work of building everything by hand, also dealing with the inevitable difficulties in procrastination and getting started.

I am a very above-average engineer when it comes to speed at completing work well, whether that's typing speed or comprehension speed, and still these tools have felt like giving me a jetpack for my mind. I can get things done in weeks that would have taken me months before, and that opens up space to consider new areas that I wouldn't have even bothered exploring before because I would not have had the time to execute on them well.

Re: Professional software developers don't vibe, they control

#84

Post by tikhonj » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 10:40 PM UTC

agentifysh wrote: post #79

banbangtuth wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean it shouldn't be the driving force of your employer to make decision. Yes I agree 10000% I meant it can be your (not necessarily your employer) driving decision in life. Of course, you need to suffer. That's about having tradeoffs.

almost all employers are going to expect you to use AI and produce more with it you can definitely choose not to participate and give the opportunity someone who are happy to use AI and still have fun with it.

most organizations have awful leadership, sure

but that doesn't mean you can't (or shouldn't) work around it

Re: Professional software developers don't vibe, they control

#85

Post by SJMG » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 10:40 PM UTC

_cenw wrote: post #31

runtimepanic wrote: post #4

The title is doing a lot of work here. What resonated with me is the shift from “writing code” to “steering systems” rather than the hype framing. Senior devs already spend more time constraining, reviewing, and shaping outcomes than typing syntax. AI just makes that explicit. The real skill gap isn’t prompt cleverness, it’s knowing when the agent is confidently wrong and how to fence it in with tests, architecture,…

Is anyone else getting more mentally exhausted by this? I get more done, but I also miss the relaxing code typing in the middle of the process.

I think it's the serial waiting game and inevitable context switching while you wait.

Long iteration cycles are taxing

Re: Professional software developers don't vibe, they control

#86

Post by christophilus » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 10:41 PM UTC

mkozlows wrote: post #73

simonw wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the participants. If they're cutting-edge LLM users then yes, I think so. If they continue to use LLMs like they would have back in the first half of 2025 I'm not sure if a difference would be noticeable.

I'm not remotely cutting edge (just switched from Cursor to Codex CLI, have no fancy tooling infrastructure, am not even vaguely considering git worktrees as a means of working), but Opus 4.5 and 5.2 Codex are both so clearly more competent than previous models that I've started just telling them to do high-level things rather than trying to break things down and give them subtasks. If people are really set in their…

I mostly agree, but today, Opus 4.5 via Claude code did something pretty dumb stuff in my codebase— N queries where one would do, deep array comparison where a reference equality check would suffice, very complex web of nested conditionals which a competent developer would have never written, some edge cases where the backend endpoints didn’t properly verify user permissions before overwriting data, etc.

It’s still hit or miss. The product “worked” when I tested it as a black box, but the code had a lot of rot in it already.

Maybe that stuff no longer matters. Maybe it does. Time will tell.

Re: Professional software developers don't vibe, they control

#87

Post by remich » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 10:41 PM UTC

jghn wrote: post #41

_cenw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is anyone else getting more mentally exhausted by this? I get more done, but I also miss the relaxing code typing in the middle of the process.

That's kind of the point here. Once a dev reached a certain level, they often weren't doing much "relaxing code typing" anyways before the AI movement. I don't find it to be much different than being a tech lead, architect, or similar role.

As a former tech lead and now staff engineer, I definitely agree with this. I read a blog post a couple of months ago that theorized that the people that would adopt these technologies the best were people in the exact roles that you describe. I think because we were already used to having to rely on other people to execute on our plans and ideas because they were simply too big to accomplish by ourselves. Now that we have agents to do these things, it's not really all that different - although it is a different management style working around their limitations.

Re: Professional software developers don't vibe, they control

#88

Post by zem » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 10:43 PM UTC

agentifysh wrote: post #74

zem wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's your choice whose dime you work on. they can compete for your work by making it fun for you.

sure unemployment is also a choice

fun work > tedious work > unemployment

not sure why so many people feel like factoring fun into what job you want to take is so unthinkable, or that it's just a false dichotomy between the ideal job and unemployment

Re: Professional software developers don't vibe, they control

#89

Post by christophilus » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 10:43 PM UTC

simonw wrote: post #63

websiteapi wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see little proof open source has resulted in higher wages and not the fact that everything is being digitized and the subsequent demand for such people to assist in such.

I'm not sure how I can prove it, but ~25 years ago building software without open source sucked . You had to build everything from scratch! It took months to get even the most basic things up and running. I think open source is the single most important productivity boost to our industry that's ever existed. Automated testing is a close second. Google, Facebook, many others would not have existed without open source…

25 years ago, I was slinging apps together super fast using VB6. It was awesome. It was a level of productivity few modern stacks can approach.

Re: Professional software developers don't vibe, they control

#90

Post by ronsor » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 10:43 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #78

_cenw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is anyone else getting more mentally exhausted by this? I get more done, but I also miss the relaxing code typing in the middle of the process.

I think there are two groups of people emerging. deep / fast / craft-and-decomposition-loving vs black box / outcome-only. I've seen people unable to work at average speed on small features suddenly reach above average output through a llm cli and I could sense the pride in them. Which is at odds with my experience of work.. I love to dig down, know a lot, model and find abstractions on my own. There a llm will 1) no…

The sibling comments (from remich and sanufar) match my experience.

1. I do love getting into the details of code, but I don't mind having an LLM handle boilerplate.

2. There isn't a binary between having an LLM generate all the code and writing it all myself.

3. I still do most of the design work because LLMs often make questionable design decisions.

4. Sometimes I simply want a program to solve a problem (outcome-focused) over a project to work on (craft-focused). Sometimes I need a small program in order to focus on the larger project, and being able to delegate that work has made it more enjoyable.