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Professional software developers don't vibe, they control

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

#131

Post by mkozlows »

christophilus wrote: post #86
mkozlows wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

I don't think they generally one-shot the tasks; but they do them well enough that you can review the diff and make requests for changes and have it succeed in a good outcome more quickly than if you were spoon-feeding it little tasks and checking them as you go (as you used to have to do).

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

#132

Post by remich »

llmslave2 wrote: post #128
remich wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that it's a bit dismissive to assume that developers who find use out of AI tools necessarily approve of worse code than you do, or have lower standards? It's fine to be a skeptic. Or to have tried out these tools and found that they do not work well for your particular use case at this moment in time. But you shouldn't assume that people who do get value out of them are not as good at the job as…

I never said anything about being worse, dumber, and definitely not slower. And keep in mind worse is subjective - if something doesn't require edge case handling or correctness, bugs can be tolerated etc, then something with those properties isn't worse is it? I'm just saying that since there is such a wide range of experiences with the same tools, it's probably likely that developers vary on their evaluations of th…

Okay, I certainly agree with you that different use cases can dictate different outcomes when using AI tooling. I would just encourage everyone who thinks similar to you to be cautious about assuming that someone who experiences a different result with these tools is less skilled or dealing with a less difficult use case - like one that has no edge cases or has greater tolerance for bugs. It's possible that this is the case, but it is just as possible that they have found a way to work with these tools that produces excellent output.

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

#133

Post by mkozlows »

simonw wrote: post #102
drbojingle wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference between using llms now vs the first half of 2025 among the best users?

Coding agents and much better models. Claude Code or Codex CLI plus Claude Opus 4.5 or GPT 5.2 Codex. The latest models and harnesses can crunch on difficult problems for hours at a time and get to working solutions. Nothing could do that back in ~March. I shared some examples in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46436885

I was going back and looking at timelines, and was shocked to realize that Claude Code and Cursor's default-to-agentic-mode changes both came out in late February. Essentially the entire history of "mainstream" agentic coding is ten months old.

(This helps me understand better the people who are confused/annoyed/dismissive about it, because I remember how dismissive people were about Node, about Docker, about Postgres, about Linux when those things were new too. So many arguments where people would passionately talk about all those things were irredeemably stupid and only suitable for toy/hobby projects.)

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

#134

Post by Madmallard »

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,…

"it’s knowing when the agent is confidently wrong and how to fence it in with tests, architecture, and invariants."

Strongly suspect this is simply less efficient than doing it yourself if you have enough expertise.

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

#135

Post by zem »

agentifysh wrote: post #115
zem wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

you are describing the ideal which is not a reality for many many people as it is not common

it's a trade-off; you need a job but you typically interview at several places, collect offers, and weigh them according to various criteria. all the pro-fun posters are saying is that "enjoy the job" is a very highly ranked criterion for us.

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

#136

Post by baq »

William_BB wrote: post #111
simonw wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coding agents and much better models. Claude Code or Codex CLI plus Claude Opus 4.5 or GPT 5.2 Codex. The latest models and harnesses can crunch on difficult problems for hours at a time and get to working solutions. Nothing could do that back in ~March. I shared some examples in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46436885

Ok I will bite. Every single example you gave is in a hobby project territory. Relatively self-contained, maintainable by 3-4 devs max, within 1k-10k lines of code. I've been successfully using coding agents to create such projects for the past year and it's great, I love it. However, lots of us here work on codebases that are 100x, 1000x the size of these projects you and Karpathy are talking about. Years of domain…

That’s right, but it also hints at a solution: split big code bases into parts that are roughly the size of a big hobby project. You’ll need to write some docs to be effective at it, which also helps agents. CICD means continuous integration continuous documentation now.

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

#137

Post by Madmallard »

banbangtuth wrote: post #53
yacthing wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy to say if you either: (1) already have enough money to survive without working, or (2) don't realize how hard of a life it would be to "flip burgers" to make a living in 2026. We live very good lives as software developers. Don't be a fool and think you could just "flip burgers" and be fine.

Ah, I actually did flip burgers. So I know. I also did dry cleaning, cleaning service, deli, delivery guy, etc. Yup I now have enough money to survive without working. But I also am very low maintenance, thanks to my early life being raised in harsh conditions. I am not scared to go back flipping burgers again.

"Yup I now have enough money to survive without working" Your opinion is borderline irrelevant then.

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

#138

Post by ramoz »

> Takeaway 3c: Experienced developers disagree about using agents for software planning and design. Some avoided agents out of concern over the importance of design, while others embraced back-and-forth design with an AI.

Im in the back-and-forth camp. I expect a lot of interesting UX to develop here. I built https://github.com/backnotprop/plannotator over the weekend to give me a better way to review & collaborate around plans - all while natively integrated into the coding agent harness.

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

#139

Post by 9rx »

jghn wrote: post #109
remich wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

Exactly. I've been a tech lead, have led large, cross-org projects, been an engineering manager, and similar roles. For years, when mentoring upcoming developers what I always to be the most challenging transition was the inflection point between "I deliver most of my value by coding" to "I deliver most of my value by empowering other people to deliver". I think that's what we're seeing here. People who have made thi…

LLMs are just a programming language/compiler/REPL, though, so there is nothing out of the ordinary for developers. Except what is different is the painfully slow compile time to code ratio. You write code for a few minutes... and then wait. Then spend a few more minutes writing code... and then wait. That is where the exhaustion comes from.

At least in the olden days[1] you could write code for days before compiling, which reduced the pain. Long compilation times has always been awful, but it is less frustrating when you could defer it until the next blue moon. LLMs don't (yet) seem to be able to handle that. If you feed them more than small amounts of code at a time they quickly go off the rails.

With that said, while you could write large amounts of code and defer it until the next blue moon, it is a skill to be able to do that. Even in C++, juniors seem to like to write a few lines of code and then turn to compiling the results to make sure they are on the right track. I expect that is the group of people who is most feeling at home with LLMs. Spending a few minutes writing code and then waiting on compilation isn't abnormal for them.

But presumably the tooling will improve with time.

[1] https://xkcd.com/303/

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

#140

Post by codeformonkey »

remich wrote: post #92
codeformoney wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stereotype that writing code is for junior developers needs to die. Some devs are hired with lofty titles specifically for their programming aptitude and esoteric systems knowlege, not to play implementation telephone with inexperienced devs.

I don't think that anyone actually believes that writing code is only for junior developers. That seems to be a significant exaggeration at the very least. However, it is definitely true that most organizations of this size are hiring people into technical lead, staff engineer, or principal engineer roles are hiring those people not only for their individual expertise, or ability to apply that expertise themselves, b…

In my world there are Hard Problems that need to be solved for bu$ine$$ rea$on$, no being a "force multiplier" required (whatever that really means).
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