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Breaking the spell of vibe coding

fast.ai

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Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#151

Post by Our_Benefactors »

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 don’t think Ralph is worthwhile, at least the few times I’ve tried to set it up I spent more time fighting to get the configuration right than if I had simply run the prompt. Coworkers had similar experiences, it’s better to set a good allowlist for Claude.

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#152

Post by getnormality »

Sateeshm wrote: post #142
mprast wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very interesting to me how many people presume that if you don't learn how to vibecode now you'll never ever be able to catch up. If the models are constantly getting better, won't these tools be easier to use a year from now? Will model improvements not obviate all the byzantine prompting strategies we have to use today?

It's hilarious. The whole point of "vibe coding" is that you don't need to learn or know anything. It's like saying if you don't learn to use a smartphone you'll be left behind. Even babies can use it now.

That's another dumb thing that unfortunately some people can be led to believe. There have been parents who genuinely thought that screen time would make their kids digitally savvy and prepared for the future.

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#153

Post by danny_codes »

shinryuu wrote: post #143
maplethorpe wrote: post #84

I think tech journalism needs to reframe its view of slot machines if it's to have a productive conversation about AI. Not everyone who plays slot machines is worse off — some people hit the jackpot, and it changes their life. Also, the people who make the slot machines benefit greatly.

At the expense of other people. Slot machines is a negative sum game.

Not for the house

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#154

Post by Our_Benefactors »

imiric wrote: post #54
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

> knowing how to use ai coding assistants productively is a skill like any other No, it's different from other skills in several ways. For one, the difficulty of this skill is largely overstated. All it requires is basic natural language reading and writing, the ability to organize work and issue clear instructions, and some relatively simple technical knowledge about managing context effectively, knowing which tool…

> In the meantime, your own skills will continue to atrophy the more you rely on this tech, instead of on your own intellect

You’re right. I’m going back to writing assembly. These compilers have totally atrophied my ability to write machine code!

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#155

Post by lelanthran »

p1esk wrote: post #133
daxfohl wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just wait for things to settle. As fast as the field is moving, staying ahead of the game is probably high investment with little return, as the things you spend a ton of time honing today may be obsolete tomorrow, or simply built into existing products with much lower learning cost. Note, if staying on the bleeding edge is what excites you, by all means do. I'm just saying for people who don't feel that urge, the…

Interesting - what makes you think things will slow down?

> Interesting - what makes you think things will slow down?

Everything slows down eventually. What makes you think this won't?

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#156

Post by t0mas88 »

koolba wrote: post #75
daxfohl wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's like the California gold rush. Anybody and their brother can go out and dig, but the real money is in selling the shovels.

More like they’re leasing away deeply discounted steam shovels at below market rates and somehow expecting to turn a profit doing so. The real profits are the companies selling them chips, fiber, and power.

But the companies selling them chips are also their shareholders, so those are on the hook as well.

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#157

Post by RsAaNtDoYsIhSi »

CoinFlipSquire wrote: post #145
wittlesus wrote: post #126

[dead]

My gripe with "developer accepts bad code without reading it" is two fold. 1. It's turning the Engineering work into the worst form of QA. It's that quote about how I want AI to do my laundry and fold my clothes so I have time to practice art. In this scenario the LLM is doing all the art and all that's left is the doing laundry and folding it. No doubt at a severely reduced salary for all involved. 2. Where exactly…

"Where exactly is the skill to know good code from bad code supposed to come from?"

Answer: Books. Two semesters of "Software Engineering" from a CS course. A CS course. CS classes: Theory of Computing. (Work. AKA Order(N) notation. Turing machines. Alphabets. Search algorithms and when/why to use them.) Data Structures. (Teaches you about RAM vs. Disk Storage.) Logic a.k.a. Discrete Math. (Hardware stuff = Logic. Also Teaches you how to convert procedures into analytic solutions into numerical solutions aka a single function that gives you an answer through determining the indeterminate of an inductive reasoning (converting a series, procedure or recursive function into an equation that gives you an answer instead of iterating and being dumb.) Networking. (error checking techniques, P2P stuff) Compilers. (Dragon book.) Math. Linear Algebra. (Rocket science) Abstract Algebra (Crypto stuff, compression) Theory of Equations (functional programming). Statistics (very helpful). Geometry. (Proofs).

Taking all these classes makes you smart and a good programmer. "Programming" without them means you're... well. Hard to talk to.

I don't think you need to write any code to be a good programmer. IMHO.

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#158

Post by retsibsi »

mprast wrote: post #53
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…

It's very interesting to me how many people presume that if you don't learn how to vibecode now you'll never ever be able to catch up. If the models are constantly getting better, won't these tools be easier to use a year from now? Will model improvements not obviate all the byzantine prompting strategies we have to use today?

I think the AI-coding skill that is likely to remain useful is the ability (and discipline) to review and genuinely understand the code produced by the AI before committing it.

I don't have that skill; I find that if I'm using AI, I'm strongly drawn toward the lazy approach. At the moment, the only way for me to actually understand the code I'm producing is to write it all myself. (That puts my brain into an active coding/puzzle solving state, rather than a passive energy-saving state.)

If I could have the best of both worlds, that would be a genuine win, and I don't think it's impossible. It won't save as much time as pure vibe coding promises to, of course.

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#159

Post by matwood »

softwaredoug wrote: post #30
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…

Even within AI coding how people use this varies wildly from one people trying to one shot apps to people being barely above tab completers. When people talk about this stuff they usually mean very different techniques. And last months way of doing it goes away in favor of a new technique. I think the best you can do now is try lots of different new ways of working keep an open mind

Yeah, it's frustrating that it seems most AI conversations devolve into straw men of either zero AI or one shot apps. There's a huge middle ground where I, and it seems like many others, have found AI very useful. We're still at the stage where it's somewhat unique for each person where AI can work for them (or not).

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#160

Post by rtpg »

mprast wrote: post #53
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…

It's very interesting to me how many people presume that if you don't learn how to vibecode now you'll never ever be able to catch up. If the models are constantly getting better, won't these tools be easier to use a year from now? Will model improvements not obviate all the byzantine prompting strategies we have to use today?

I do think that there's some meta-skills involved here that are useful, in the same way that some people have good "Google-fu". Some of it is portable, some of it isn't.

I think if you orient your experimentation right you can think of some good tactics that are helpful even when you're not using AI assistance. "Making this easier for the robot" can often align with "making this easier for the humans" as well. It's a decent forcing function

Though I agree with the sentiment. People who have been doing this for less than a year convinced that they have some permanent lead over everyone.

I think a lot about my years being self taught programming. Years spent spinning my wheels. I know people who after 3 months of a coding bootcamp were much further than me after like ... 6 years of me struggling through material.

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