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Breaking the spell of vibe coding

fast.ai

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Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#11

Post by pipes »

ithkuil wrote: post #8
Kerrick wrote: post #3

> However, it is important to ask if you want to stop investing in your own skills because of a speculative prediction made by an AI researcher or tech CEO. I don't think these are exclusive. Almost a year ago, I wrote a blog post about this [0]. I spent the time since then both learning better software design and learning to vibe code. I've worked through Domain-Driven Design Distilled , Domain-Driven Design , Imple…

I personally found out that knowing how to use ai coding assistants productively is a skill like any other and a) it requires a significant investment of time b) can be quite rewarding to learn just as any other skill c) might be useful now or in the future and d) doesn't negate the usefulness of any other skills acquired on the past nor diminishes the usefulness of learning new skills in the future

On the using AI assistants I find that everything is moving so fast that I feel constantly like "I'm doing this wrong". Is the answer simply "dedicate time to experimenting? I keep hearing "spec driven design" or "Ralph" maybe I should learn those? Genuine thoughts and questions btw.

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#12

Post by tjr »

I see AI coding as something like project management. You could delegate all of the tasks to an LLM, or you could assign some to yourself.

If you keep some for yourself, there’s a possibility that you might not churn out as much code as quickly as someone delegating all programming to AI. But maybe shipping 45,000 lines a day instead of 50,000 isn’t that bad.

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#13

Post by LPisGood »

theYipster wrote: post #5

Just because you’re a good programmer / software engineer doesn’t mean you’re a good architect, or a good UI designer, or a good product manager. Yet in my experience, using LLMs to successfully produce software really works those architect, designer, and manager muscles, and thus requires them to be strong.

I really disagree with this. I don’t think you can be a good software engineer without being a good product manager and a good architect.

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#14

Post by bobthepanda »

pipes wrote: post #11
ithkuil wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally found out that knowing how to use ai coding assistants productively is a skill like any other and a) it requires a significant investment of time b) can be quite rewarding to learn just as any other skill c) might be useful now or in the future and d) doesn't negate the usefulness of any other skills acquired on the past nor diminishes the usefulness of learning new skills in the future

On the using AI assistants I find that everything is moving so fast that I feel constantly like "I'm doing this wrong". Is the answer simply "dedicate time to experimenting? I keep hearing "spec driven design" or "Ralph" maybe I should learn those? Genuine thoughts and questions btw.

I think find what works for you, and everything else is kind of noise.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white so long as it catches mice.

——

Ive also found that picking something and learning about it helps me with mental models for picking up other paradigms later, similar to how learning Java doesn’t actually prevent you from say picking up Python or Javascript

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#15

Post by written-beyond »

tjr wrote: post #12

I see AI coding as something like project management. You could delegate all of the tasks to an LLM, or you could assign some to yourself. If you keep some for yourself, there’s a possibility that you might not churn out as much code as quickly as someone delegating all programming to AI. But maybe shipping 45,000 lines a day instead of 50,000 isn’t that bad.

You need to understand the frustration behind these kinds of posts.

The people on the start of the curve are the ones who swear against LLMs for engineering, and are the loudest in the comments.

The people on the end of the curve are the ones who spam about only vibing, not looking at code and are attempting to build this new expectation for the new interaction layer for software to be LLM exclusively. These ones are the loudest on posts/blogs.

The ones in the middle are people who accept using LLMs as a tool, and like with all tools they exercise restraint and caution. Because waiting 5 to 10 seconds each time for an LLM to change the color of your font, and getting it wrong is slower than just changing it yourself. You might as well just go in and do these tiny adjustments yourself.

It's the engineers at both ends that have made me lose my will to live.

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#16

Post by _se »

daxfohl wrote: post #7

I think it all boils down to, which is higher risk, using AI too much, or using AI too little? Right now I see the former as being hugely risky. Hallucinated bugs, coaxed into dead-end architectures, security concerns, not being familiar with the code when a bug shows up in production, less sense of ownership, less hands-on learning, etc. This is true both at the personal level and at the business level. (And astound…

Very reasonable take. The fact that this is being downvoted really shows how poor HN's collective critical thinking has become. Silicon Valley is cannibalizing itself and it's pretty funny to watch from the outside with a clear head.

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#17

Post by cmrdporcupine »

"they don’t produce useful layers of abstraction nor meaningful modularization. They don’t value conciseness or improving organization in a large code base. We have automated coding, but not software engineering"

Which frankly describes pretty much all real world commercial software projects I've been on, too.

Software engineering hasn't happened yet. Agents produce big balls of mud because we do, too.

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#18

Post by gnatolf »

pipes wrote: post #11
ithkuil wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally found out that knowing how to use ai coding assistants productively is a skill like any other and a) it requires a significant investment of time b) can be quite rewarding to learn just as any other skill c) might be useful now or in the future and d) doesn't negate the usefulness of any other skills acquired on the past nor diminishes the usefulness of learning new skills in the future

On the using AI assistants I find that everything is moving so fast that I feel constantly like "I'm doing this wrong". Is the answer simply "dedicate time to experimenting? I keep hearing "spec driven design" or "Ralph" maybe I should learn those? Genuine thoughts and questions btw.

Everybody feels like this, and I think nobody stays ahead of the curve for a prolonged time. There's just too many wrinkles.

But also, you don't have to upgrade every iteration. I think it's absolutely worthwhile to step off the hamster wheel every now and then, just work with you head down for a while and come back after a few weeks. One notices that even though the world didn't stop spinning, you didn't get the whiplash of every rotation.

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#19

Post by mattmanser »

Kerrick wrote: post #3

> However, it is important to ask if you want to stop investing in your own skills because of a speculative prediction made by an AI researcher or tech CEO. I don't think these are exclusive. Almost a year ago, I wrote a blog post about this [0]. I spent the time since then both learning better software design and learning to vibe code. I've worked through Domain-Driven Design Distilled , Domain-Driven Design , Imple…

As someone with 20 years experience, DDD is a stupid idea, skip it and do yourself a favour.

You'll probably be forming some counter-arguments in your head.

Skip them, throw the DDD books in the bin, and do your co-workers a favour.

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