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AI coding is gambling

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Re: AI coding is gambling

#291

Post by cyanydeez »

FL4TLiN3 wrote: post #191

In my corner of the world, average software developers at Tokyo companies, not that many people are actually using Claude Code for their day-to-day work yet. Their employers have rolled it out and actively encourage adoption, but nobody wants to change how they work. This probably won't surprise anyone familiar with Japanese corporate culture: external pressure to boost productivity just doesn't land the same way her…

y/eah, I here all the podcasters describing how they're building things; and when it comes to something like translating a package from one language to another and that package has tests, it's a meandering but fruitful adventure. Because, of course, when you can sane tests you can always loop through. I did this with a package dependency I had, and it got 90% of the way there, but then one of the tests I expanded upon just refused. It ended up seeming like it was just a failed dependency.

But where there are no tests, and you're the one defining whats correct, you're definitely encroaching on the slot machine hoping it'll spit out something faster than you could do it yourself.

Then there's some vague unease in whether spending the time to prompt will actuall result in a properly integrated software in a large existing code base with idiosyncratic code use.

Overall, I don't see the ROI business gets from forcing people into these tools; however, as an individual, it's definitely worth understanding what they can do. Mostly, I see the efficient copy/past/find/replace of existing code to be very good.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#292

Post by pdntspa »

tovej wrote: post #285
pdntspa wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly. Mostly? I wanted a stackable desk tray shelf thing for my desk in literally any size for my clutter. Too lazy to go shopping for one, and couldn't find one on any of the maker sites, so I had claude write me an openSCAD file over lunch break then we iterated on it after-hours. By end of work next day I had three of them sitting on my desk after about 3 hours of back-and-forth the night before (along with ab…

Would you share the music app? Do you have a public repo or demo somewhere? You didn't really describe it very much, so it's hard to say what it actually does. I'm interested in evaluating the quality of vibecoded projects people actually use.

At a later date, perhaps. I haven't messed with this project since I got employed and it was written over summer 2025, when the tooling for agentic development was a lot worse. (Very ADD here) There's also the open question of how best to package a python app that makes use of PyTorch and SciPy for distribution to nontechnical users. I want to solve that before I start putting this in other people's hands.

Careful with the term 'vibe coded', that does not characterize how I work.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#293

Post by californical »

pdntspa wrote: post #147
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the programming is and was always a means to an end. No. Programming is a specific act (writing code), and that act is also a means to an end. But getting to the goal does not mean you did programming. Saying "I'm good at programming" when you are just using LLMs to generate code for you is like saying "I'm good at driving" when you only ever take an Uber and don't ever drive yourself. It's complete nonsens…

I'm still reading the code, I'm still correcting the LLM's laughably awful architecture and abstractions, and I'm still spending large chunks of time in the design and planning phase with the LLM. The only thing it does is write the code. But that's not programming because its a natural-language conversation?

I mean, yes - you’re reviewing and architecting, but not creating.

Same as if you use an image diffusion model. You can describe very clearly what you want, and iterate carefully until you get a picture that looks good. But nobody would say that they “drew a nice picture”, since they haven’t done any drawing.

(except maybe the mega-power-users who use the tool and have a warped view of their accomplishment)

Re: AI coding is gambling

#294

Post by throwawaytea »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #104
itsgrimetime wrote: post #92

All of this new capability has made me realize that the reason i love programming _isn't_ the same as the OP. I used to think (and tell others) that I loved understanding something deeply, wading through the details to figure out a tough problem. but actually, being able to will anything I can think of into existence is what I love about programming. I do feel for the people who were able to make careers out of falli…

> but I finally feel like I'm _good_ at programming, which is insane, because I literally haven't written a line of code myself in months This is exactly the sort of mentality that makes me hate this technology You finally feel good at programming despite admitting that you aren't actually doing it Please explain why anyone should take this seriously?

I know how to build a house for the most part. But I don't have time to build a house.

If I get a robot someday and manage it daily before I leave for work to slowly build a house, when it's done, I gotta be honest and admit I'll consider myself a home builder.

Otherwise, who is a home builder? Very few people do every single part themselves, even if they technically could.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#295

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

thangalin wrote: post #286
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I finally feel like I'm _good_ at programming, which is insane Yes, it is insane. You couldn't torture this confession out of me. But that's the drug they're selling you, isn't it? You don't even write code, but you're getting a self-inflated sense of worth. It must be addicting! Of course, whether or not the programs you prompt are actually good surely has no relation to whether you feel they're good, since yo…

> LLMs are not actually doing a great job of translating ideas into tangibly useful software Here is the source code for a greenfield, zero-dependency, 100% pure PHP raw Git repository viewer made for self-hosted or shared environments that is 99.9% vibe-coded and has had ~10k hits and ~7k viewers of late, with 0 errors reported in the logs over the last 24 hours: https://repo.autonoma.ca/repo/treetrek

Frankly, I created dozen of such projects in the last weeks. Recently I just deleted them all. I feel like there's no point. I cancelled my Claude subscription, too.

I got back learning from books and use LLMs for "review my code in depth and show me its weak points" occasionally.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#296

Post by angrymouse »

Aurornis wrote: post #267
542458 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone can be an "ideas guy". I disagree with this. I've worked with amazing "ideas guys" who just cranked out customer insights and interesting concepts, and I've worked with lousy ones, who just kinda meandered and never had a focused vision beyond a milquetoast copy of the last thing they saw. There's a real skill to forming good concepts, and it's not a skill everyone has!

I think the Product Manager title was (and still is) one of the most abused titles in tech. A great product manager is indispensable for setting product direction in a way that can't be accomplished by others doing it part-time or advocating for their own needs. I've worked with some truly great product managers. I've also worked with a lot of awful product managers. The product manager title is squishy enough that i…

What do you think the good ones do? And how do they set direction in a way that’s good compared to a bad one?

Re: AI coding is gambling

#297

Post by hext »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #289
hext wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you enjoy the flamewar, check out /r/SelfHosted which has been losing it's mind over the last few months. The heavy heavy majority of that community is somehow incredibly anti AI despite the fact that the previous "spammy" posts (before ai assisted projects) were all "what is wrong with my docker compose file"??

I had to unsub from that subreddit when I saw a cool new application and the top comments were just dogging it for the signs of Claude Code (claude.md). This is a subreddit about selfhosting things others built for free. Honestly, often for piracy purposes. It's insane how entitled people have become.

Absolutely. Really gross to see. Heavy majority of the complaints boil down to “I can’t blindly trust everything posted here now?” - as if they could before?? So entitled.

Also annoys me that all of the suggestions on how to handle filtering AI demonstrate a clear lack of understanding around how agentic coding works. Like if you can’t be bothered to understand why “ban any project that uses AI” is not possible, the entire subreddit is probably above your pay grade…

Re: AI coding is gambling

#298

Post by cyanydeez »

interestpiqued wrote: post #200
Terr_ wrote: post #36

I'd emphasize that prompting LLMs to generate code isn't just metaphorical gambling in the sense of "taking a risk", the scary part is the more-literal gambling involving addictive behaviors and how those affect the way the user interacts with the machine and the world. Heck, this technology also offers a parasocial relationship at the same time! Plopping tokens into a slot-machine which also projects a holographic "…

I think AI literally makes even being wrong feel like getting something done. And that is the addictive part for people.

"Near-Miss" effect: https://harprehab.com/blogs/the-psychology-of-risk-why-gambl...

I believe that's the strongest pattern in LLM gambling. Was listening the Syntax and they described that "Even though theLLM did it wrong 4 times, that 5th time could be right, so why not just go!"; paraphrased of course.

It also explains the meta-LLM business, where all these CEO types put in some question and because the LLM just knows all these words, they believe it's valuable because it's "almost" correct, even when that last correction might be forever elusive because these machines arn't thinking, they're patterning a highly regularized language beneath the more loose descriptions.

There'll definitely be a winner in the AI bubble, but it'll be seen after it pops.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#299

Post by RhythmFox »

Terr_ wrote: post #36

I'd emphasize that prompting LLMs to generate code isn't just metaphorical gambling in the sense of "taking a risk", the scary part is the more-literal gambling involving addictive behaviors and how those affect the way the user interacts with the machine and the world. Heck, this technology also offers a parasocial relationship at the same time! Plopping tokens into a slot-machine which also projects a holographic "…

Having used agents some I think 'addictive behavior' is really the closest thing to the feeling it gives me as well. I don't find it engaging my critical thinking brain, and in fact it often subverts that in favor of 'get the next dopamine hit faster' behavior (ie just rerun it, leading to the metaphor the OP is using). It takes a conscious effort for me to get back out of that cycle and start thinking of the fine details of what the code really does, or why I wanted it to do that in the first place. I have called it 'smoking vibes' and 'chasing rAInbows' in my sillier moments. It really does feel good... too good :P

Re: AI coding is gambling

#300

Post by pdntspa »

bakugo wrote: post #276
pdntspa wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still reading the code, I'm still correcting the LLM's laughably awful architecture and abstractions, and I'm still spending large chunks of time in the design and planning phase with the LLM. The only thing it does is write the code. But that's not programming because its a natural-language conversation?

> But that's not programming because its a natural-language conversation? Correct. Programming is writing code. You are not writing code, therefore you are not programming. I don't understand what's so complicated about this.

I'm literally making a program. Present-progressive of the verb to program. I feel like you're pearl-clutching on semantics. By my read, programming != writing code, but writing code is most definitely programming. Oxford defines 'to program' as both.
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