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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

#241

Post by micik »

danielbln wrote: post #226
lexandstuff wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not complicated at all. You don't "manage agents". You just type your prompt into an terminal application that can update files, read your docs and run your tests. As with every new tech there's a hell of a lot of noise (plugins, skills, hooks, MCP, LSP - to quote Kaparthy) but most of it can just be disregarded. No one is "behind" - it's all very easy to use.

Easy to use, hard to master. Or: low skill floor, high skill ceiling. My output wouldn't be nearly as good without subagents and skills, and MCPs are somewhat required if you deploy tool using agents at scale. It's like saying all you need is notepad to develop. It's not wrong, but.. you know.

It’s not hard to master. It’s not a skill to be learned —- it’s a tool that comes with a manual. You read the manual and now you can use the tool. Most people never will read the manual which is what gives the false impression that there’s something “to master” here. It’s like saying vím is harder to use than notepad. Not if you read the entire manual first.

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

#242

Post by danielbln »

micik wrote: post #241
danielbln wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy to use, hard to master. Or: low skill floor, high skill ceiling. My output wouldn't be nearly as good without subagents and skills, and MCPs are somewhat required if you deploy tool using agents at scale. It's like saying all you need is notepad to develop. It's not wrong, but.. you know.

It’s not hard to master. It’s not a skill to be learned —- it’s a tool that comes with a manual. You read the manual and now you can use the tool. Most people never will read the manual which is what gives the false impression that there’s something “to master” here. It’s like saying vím is harder to use than notepad. Not if you read the entire manual first.

I'm not sure how you define skill acquisition, it's reading documentation and doing the skill, yes? The AI landscape shifts rather quickly still, and a new LLM + harness has a different set of functionality, but more importantly different fuzzy failure cases Things a model is particular good at, things that work better if you combine certain systems. All of it is documented, but also fast moving and new things are discovered frequently. In comparison, Vim has been around for decades.

And vum is absolutely harder to use than notepad. Otherwise it's like saying that rocket science isn't hard because you just have to read the documentation to know how to engineer a rocket.

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

#243

Post by ciaranmca »

danavar wrote: post #186

So much of my professional SWE jobs isn't even programming - I feel like this is a detail missed by so many. Generally people just stereotype SWE as a programmer, but being an engineer (in any discipline) is so much more than that. You solve problems. AI will speed up the programming work-streams, but there is so much more to our jobs than that.

^This 100%. Junior SWE here. Agentic coding has kinda felt like a promotion for me. I code less by hand and spend more time on the actual engineering side of things. There’s hype in both directions though. I don’t AI is replacing me anytime soon(fingers crossed), but it’s already way more useful than the skeptics give it credit for. Like most things the truth’s somewhere in the middle.

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

#244

Post by epolanski »

generic92034 wrote: post #209
epolanski wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool, but most developers do mundane stuff like glueing APIs and implementing business logic, which require oversight and review. Those crunching hard problems will still review what's produced in search of issues.

What is (in general) mundane about business logic? This can be highly complex, with deep process integration all over your modules.

Which is why it requires detailed oversight.

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

#245

Post by esafak »

zkmon wrote: post #191
esafak wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An agent takes actions. Chat bots only return text.

"takes actions" is automation and its is hardly new. Code was always taking actions over the decades. Interpreting and generating text belongs to chat bots. What's new with agents?

Your code only takes actions prescribed by you. The agent does not; it picks the tool. I thought this was too obvious to point out.

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

#246

Post by lifetimerubyist »

danielbln wrote: post #225
lifetimerubyist wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hear hear. I didn't spend half my life getting an education, competing in the corporate crab bucket, retraining and upskilling just to turn into a robot babysitter.

Then continue to write code as a hobby, noone is going to take that away from you. But if you want someone to pay you for hand setting code the way you always have then .. well you might find that harder and harder as time goes on.

[dead]

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

#247

Post by zem »

throw-12-16 wrote: post #215
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

this is known as privilege

it's definitely a privilege to be able to find a fun job! but note that I'm not saying that everyone should hold out until they find one, I'm pushing back against the dour people who are convinced in their heart of hearts that "it's a job, it's not supposed to be fun" and that you are being an idiot for thinking it's even possible to find a job you really enjoy.

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

#248

Post by whateverboat »

ipdashc wrote: post #187
whateverboat wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnaGZHe8wws This is a nice video on why Electron is the best you might be able to do.

Thanks for the link - this is a cool video. Though it seems like it's mostly focusing on the performance/"bloat" side of things. I do agree that's an annoying aspect of Electron, and I do think his justifications for it are totally fair, but I was more so thinking about ease of use, especially for nontechnical people / beginners. My memory of it is very fuzzy, but I recall VB being literally drag-and-drop, and yet st…

You are totally right. Going even way back, in days of TurboPascal, you could include graphics.h and get a very cool snake game going within half an hour. Today, doing anything like that is a week of advanced stuff. Someone wanted to recreated that experience today and came up with this: https://github.com/dascandy/pixel

But as you can see how much boiler plate was needed to be written for them to write this.

https://github.com/dascandy/pixel/blob/master/examples/simpl...

See the user example and then look at src for boilder plate.

In old days, you could easily write a full operating system from scratch on 8051 while use PS/2 peripherals. Today, all peripherals are USB and USB 2.0 standard is 500 pages long.

I also agree that we have left behind the idea of teaching probably or at least removed it from the mainstream.

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

#249

Post by Snuggly73 »

danielbln wrote: post #228
throw-12-16 wrote: post #193

Getting big "I'll keep making saddles in the era of automobiles" vibes from these comments.

Yeah, it feels many SWEs have painted themselves into a corner. They love the nose-to-code-grindstone process and chain themselves to the abstraction layer of today. I don't think it's gonna end well for them, let's see.

This type of comment implies that it’s going to stop with “them” and somehow “us that adopted the LLM” will be the winners. The goal is full automation, there is no “adapt or be left behind”.

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

#250

Post by falkensmaize »

hecanjog wrote: post #232
banbangtuth wrote: post #9

You know what. After seeing all these articles about AI/LLM for these past 4 years, about how they are going to replace me as software developers and about how I am not productive enough without using 5 agents and being a project manager. I. Don't. Care. I don't even care about those debates outside. Debates about do LLM work and replace programmers? Say they do, ok so what? I simply have too much fun programming. I…

I appreciate this perspective. I'm actually hoping LLM hype will help to pop the bubble of tech salaries, make the profession roughly as profitable as going into teaching, so maybe the gold diggers will clear out and go play the stock market or something, rest of us can stick around and build things. Maybe software quality will even improve as a result? Would be nice...

Man, come on - what planet are you from, seriously? I got into this business because I enjoy programming, but I also wanted to for once in my life make a decent living and be able to save something. I have kids I'd like to send to college. I'd like to be able to retire someday. I have aging parents that need expensive care. This is one of the few professions that you can upskill into without years of expensive degrees.

People need to make money to survive, now more than ever. It seems incredibly selfish to wish for that to disappear just so you can "purify" the profession.

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