I’ve learned the hard way that in coding, every line matters. While learning Go for a new job, I realised I had been struggling because I overused LLMs and that slowed my learning. Every line we write reflects a sense of 'taste' and needs to be fully controlled and understood. You need a solid mental model of how the code is evolving. Tech CEOs and 'AI researchers' lack the practical experience to understand this, and we should stop listening to them about how software is actually built.
Breaking the spell of vibe coding
101–110 of 375 posts
Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding
#102Articles like this amount to a straw man.
People seem to think that just because it produces a bunch of code you therefore don’t need to read it or be responsible for the output. Sure you can do that, but then you are also justifying throwing away all the process and thinking that has gone into productive and safe software engineering over the last 50 years.
Have tests, do code reviews, get better at spec’ing so the agent doesn’t wing it, verify the output, actively curate your guardrails. Do this and your leverage will multiply.
Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding
#103Step 1. Stop calling it "vibe coding."
Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding
#104I 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…
> I think it all boils down to, which is higher risk, using AI too much, or using AI too little? This framing is exactly how lots of people in the industry are thinking about AI right now, but I think it's wrong. The way to adopt new science, new technology, new anything really, has always been that you validate it for small use cases, then expand usage from there. Test on mice, test in clinical trials, then go to ma…
To be fair, that's what I have done. I try to use AI every now and then for small, easy things. It isn't yet reliable for those things, and always makes mistakes I have to clean up. Therefore I'm not going to trust it with anything more complicated yet.
Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding
#105It's astonishing to me that real software developers have considered it a good idea to generate code... and not even look at the code . I would have thought sanity checking the output to be the most elementary next step.
I wonder if this phenomenon comes from how reliable lower layers have become. For example, I never check the binary or ASM produced by my code, nor even intermediate byte code.
So vibers may be assuming the AI is as reliable, or at least can be with enough specs and attempts.
Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is basically Pascal’s wager. However, unlike the original Pascal’s wager, yours actually sounds sound. Another good alike wager I remember is: “What if climate change is a hoax, and we invested in all this clean energy infrastructure for nothing” .
Interesting analogy, but I'd say it's kind of the opposite. In the two you mentioned, the cost of inaction is extremely high, so they reach one conclusion, whereas here the argument is that the cost of inaction is pretty low, and reaches the opposite conclusion.
Indeed, another key difference with the climate change wager is that both the action and the consequences are global, whereas the OG wager and the AI wager are both about personal choice.
Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding
#107I 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…
Even if you believe that many are too far on one side now, you have to account for the fact that AI will get better rapidly. If you're not using it now you may end up lacking preparation when it becomes more valuable
> you have to account for the fact that AI will get better rapidly
that's nowhere near guaranteed
Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding
#108That AI would be writing 90% of the code at Anthropic was not a "failed prediction". If we take Anthropic's word for it, now their agents are writing 100% of the code: https://fortune.com/2026/01/29/100-percent-of-code-at-anthro... Of course you can choose to believe that this is a lie and that Anthropic is hyping their own models, but it's impossible to deny the enormous revenue that the company is generating via th…
One thing I like to think about is: If these models were so powerful why would they ever sell access? They could just build endless products to sell, likely outcompeting anyone else who needs to employ humans. And if not building their own products they could be the highest value contractor ever. If you had midas touch would you rent it out?
Arguably because the parts the AI can't do (yet?) still need a lot of human attention. Stuff like developing business models, finding market fit, selling, interacting with prospects and customers, etc.
Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those of us working from the bottom, looking up, do tend to take the clinical progressive approach. Our focus is on the next ticket. My theory is that executives must be so focused on the future that they develop a (hopefully) rational FOMO. After all, missing some industry shaking phenomenon could mean death. If that FOMO is justified then they've saved the company. If it's not, then maybe the budget suffers but the…
>must be so focused on the future They're focused no the short-term future, not the long-term future. So if everyone else adopts AI but you don't and the stock price suffers because of that (merely because of the "perception" that your company has fallen behind affecting market value), then that is an issue. There's no true long-term planning at play, otherwise you wouldn't have obvious copypcat behavior amongst CEOs…
Every company should have hired over the pandemic due to there being a higher EV than not hiring. It's like if someone offered an opportunity to pay $1000 for a 50% chance to make $8000, where the outcome is the same between everyone taking the offer. If you are maximizing for the long term everyone should take the offer even if it does result in a reality where everyone loses $1000.
Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding
#110It's astonishing to me that real software developers have considered it a good idea to generate code... and not even look at the code . I would have thought sanity checking the output to be the most elementary next step.
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