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Vibe Coding is not an excuse for low-quality work

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Re: Vibe Coding is not an excuse for low-quality work

#3
> treat the AI like a super-speedy but junior developer on your team

That sounds like it's going to take a lot more time that just writing the code for an experienced developer. The issue with AI for me is that it produces plausible-looking code which requires a lot of attention to read through, because things that look superficially "right", including any justification in code comments, can actually have really problematic flaws.

Re: Vibe Coding is not an excuse for low-quality work

#4

"The big takeaway is that speed means nothing without quality" - I feel like this is not true in 'move fast and break things' ideology

I feel like people don’t really understand that ideology - if all you ever do is break things (or produce broken things), then you’re not actually moving fast at all.

Re: Vibe Coding is not an excuse for low-quality work

#5
So what have we redefined vibe coding to mean exactly?

The original tweet[1] talked very specifically about not caring about quality, just accepting whatever code the AI produces blindly, as long as you get the black box output you're looking for, and just randomly try again if you didn't.

Are people now using this term to mean "giving an AI agent broad tasks"?

[1] https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383?lang=en

Re: Vibe Coding is not an excuse for low-quality work

#6
Different people clearly mean different things when they talk about software quality. There is quality as perceived by the user: few bugs, accurately models the problem they have, no more complicated than necessary, etc. Then there is this other notion of quality as something to do with how the software is built. How neat and clear it is. How easy it is to extend or change.

The first kind of quality is the only kind that matters in the end. The second kind has mattered a lot up until now because of how involved humans are in typing up and editing software. It doesn't need to matter going forward. To a machine, the entire application can be rewritten just as easily as making a small change.

I would gladly give up all semblance of the second kind of quality in exchange for formal specifications and testing methods, which an AI goes through the trouble of satisfying for me. Concepts and models matter in the problem domain (assuming humans are the ones using the software), but they will increasingly have no place in the solution domain.

Re: Vibe Coding is not an excuse for low-quality work

#9
post #3

> treat the AI like a super-speedy but junior developer on your team That sounds like it's going to take a lot more time that just writing the code for an experienced developer. The issue with AI for me is that it produces plausible-looking code which requires a lot of attention to read through, because things that look superficially "right", including any justification in code comments, can actually have really prob…

I've found utility + speed go up the more conservative (in number of lines) the model generates. If it only completed a line it's much more likely to be exactly what I was about to type

Re: Vibe Coding is not an excuse for low-quality work

#10
post #3

> treat the AI like a super-speedy but junior developer on your team That sounds like it's going to take a lot more time that just writing the code for an experienced developer. The issue with AI for me is that it produces plausible-looking code which requires a lot of attention to read through, because things that look superficially "right", including any justification in code comments, can actually have really prob…

I remember when I'd rushed a piece of work when studying, I had a lecturer who told us something like:

There are a few kinds of developers: good, bad, slow and fast. Everyone wants to be a good developer but a fast and bad developer is worse than a slow and bad developer because they end up doing so much damage.

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