Karpathy coined the term vibecoding 11 months ago ( https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383 ). It caused quite a stir - because not only was it was a radically new concept, but fully agentic coding had only become recently possible. You've been vibe coding for two years ??
After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand
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Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand
#92AI is incredibly dangerous because it can do the simple things very well, which prevents new programmers from learning the simple things ("Oh, I'll just have AI generate it") which then prevents them from learning the middlin' and harder and meta things at a visceral level. I'm a CS teacher, so this is where I see a huge danger right now and I'm explicit with my students about it: you HAVE to write the code. You CAN'…
Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s like weightlifting: sure you can use a forklift to do it, but if the goal is to build up your own strength, using the forklift isn’t going to get you there. This is the ultimate problem with AI in academia. We all inherently know that “no pain no gain” is true for physical tasks, but the same is true for learning. Struggling through the new concepts is essentially the point of it, not just the end result. Of cou…
Unlike weightlifting, the main goal of our jobs is not to lift heavy things, but develop a product that adds value to its users. Unfortunately, many sdevs don't understand it.
Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand
#94AI is incredibly dangerous because it can do the simple things very well, which prevents new programmers from learning the simple things ("Oh, I'll just have AI generate it") which then prevents them from learning the middlin' and harder and meta things at a visceral level. I'm a CS teacher, so this is where I see a huge danger right now and I'm explicit with my students about it: you HAVE to write the code. You CAN'…
I'm an external examiner for CS students in Denmark and I disagree with you. What we need in the industry is software engineers who can think for themselves, can interact with the business and understand it's needs, and, they need to know how computers work. What we get are mass produced coders who have been taught some outdated way of designing and building software that we need to hammer out of them. I don't partic…
The only way to learn when abstractions are needed is to write code, hit a dead end, then try and abstract it. Over and over. With time, you will be able to start seeing these before you write code.
AI does not do abstractions well. From my experience, it completely fails to abstract anything unless you tell it to. Even when similar abstractions are already present. If you never learn when an abstraction is needed, how can you guide an AI to do the same well?
Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand
#95AI is incredibly dangerous because it can do the simple things very well, which prevents new programmers from learning the simple things ("Oh, I'll just have AI generate it") which then prevents them from learning the middlin' and harder and meta things at a visceral level. I'm a CS teacher, so this is where I see a huge danger right now and I'm explicit with my students about it: you HAVE to write the code. You CAN'…
Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm an external examiner for CS students in Denmark and I disagree with you. What we need in the industry is software engineers who can think for themselves, can interact with the business and understand it's needs, and, they need to know how computers work. What we get are mass produced coders who have been taught some outdated way of designing and building software that we need to hammer out of them. I don't partic…
> I don't particularily care if people can write code like they work at the assembly line. I care [...] That they can deliver business value quickly. In my experience, people who talk about business value expect people to code like they work at the assembly line. Churn out features, no disturbances, no worrying about code quality, abstractions, bla bla. To me, your comment reads contradictory. You want initiative, an…
That's typical misconception that "I'm an artist, let me rewrite in Rust" people often have. Code quality has a direct money equivalent, you just need to be able to justify it for people that pay you salary.
Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand
#97AI is incredibly dangerous because it can do the simple things very well, which prevents new programmers from learning the simple things ("Oh, I'll just have AI generate it") which then prevents them from learning the middlin' and harder and meta things at a visceral level. I'm a CS teacher, so this is where I see a huge danger right now and I'm explicit with my students about it: you HAVE to write the code. You CAN'…
It’s like weightlifting: sure you can use a forklift to do it, but if the goal is to build up your own strength, using the forklift isn’t going to get you there. This is the ultimate problem with AI in academia. We all inherently know that “no pain no gain” is true for physical tasks, but the same is true for learning. Struggling through the new concepts is essentially the point of it, not just the end result. Of cou…
There is more than one kind of leverage at play here.
Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand
#98Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
I only learn when I do things, not when I hear how they work. I think the teacher has the right idea.
Yes, I do too, but the point they were trying to make is that "learning how to write code" is not the point of CS education, but only a side effect.
Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That's your job. Exactly. AI assisted development isn't all or nothing. We as a group and as individuals need to figure out the right blend of AI and human.
Seriously. I've known for a very long time that our community has a serious problem with binary thinking, but AI has done more to reinforce that than anything I can think of in modern memory. Nearly every discussion I get into about AI is dead out of the gate because at least one person in the conversation has a binary view that it's either handwritten or vibe coded. They have an insanely difficult time imagining any…
For example, most political flamefests