I won't be vibe coding anymore: a noob's perspective • Hacker News Board

Re: I won't be vibe coding anymore: a noob's perspective

#31

Post by Sayrus » Wed, Apr 23, 2025, 5:15 PM UTC

josephwegner wrote: post #13

> coding isn’t about the finished product. its a lot like writing This doesn't seem applicable in most contexts. Yes, when I'm coding for fun or purely for learning the finished product is less relevant... but I'd guess the vast majority of code that is written is for a business that _only_ cares about the product. Code is an implementation detail. If (and this is a _big_ if) AI-based coding can increase developer ve…

> even as little as 50%

Depending on how you measure that velocity (e.g. including security risks, debugging capabilities, ...) even as little as 5% increase is a no brainer for a business. Whether it's AI, powerful laptops, a fully-fledged IDE, an environment with a good dev experience, anything that gives a few percent increase snowballs into millions over an entire workforce.

Whether the current AI capabilities provide that increase without trade-offs that would be too heavy later one is a question that still seems up to debate.

Re: I won't be vibe coding anymore: a noob's perspective

#32

Post by rocqua » Wed, Apr 23, 2025, 5:15 PM UTC

esalman wrote: post #16

billy99k wrote: post #5

"that’s when it struck me. coding isn’t about the finished product. its a lot like writing. its about the process. its about how you approach a problem. its critical thinking." From a business perspective, they don't care about this. They just want it built as inexpensively as possible in a reasonable time frame. Vibe coding is here to stay.

What is coding without critical thinking? I never vibe coded, and I don't understand this trend AT ALL. I read how copilot and such are detrimental to critical thinking, and I am even consciously scaling back on copilot use now whenever possible, and prioritizing Google search, reading documentation, blog posts and stackoverflow now.

Vibe coding hasn't really hampered my critical thinking. It just means I get ideas into practice faster, and it means that for new concepts I can get to itterating much faster.

Perhaps I have the concept wrong, because half the time I'm still editing code by hand.

Re: I won't be vibe coding anymore: a noob's perspective

#33

Post by darknavi » Wed, Apr 23, 2025, 5:15 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #15

Independent of the opinion expressed, I dig the minimalistic, typewriter-style blog format demonstrated here.

I don't dislike it but I don't love the lack of capitalization. Not really sure why that trend is on the uptick.

Re: I won't be vibe coding anymore: a noob's perspective

#34

Post by bitwize » Wed, Apr 23, 2025, 5:16 PM UTC

When you're just starting out, especially if you're young, programming feels like it's about the journey more than the destination. You can feel yourself growing and learning, and it's incredibly addicting because you feel like nothing's out of reach.

But in the business world, what matters is that you ship something that works, and pleases the customer, on time and under budget. If you're selling software, time to market is a critical constraint. And after your umpteenth slog through some wretched legacy code base, the feeling of achieving wizardly power begins to fade. Programming becomes another clerical job, and really, you don't care much about producing a lovingly handcrafted solution, you just want to get it out there and collect your pay so you can pay your mortgage and keep supporting your wife and kids. At the end of the day, that's what it's all about. AI lets you get stuff out there faster. Therefore it makes sense from a business perspective.

Re: I won't be vibe coding anymore: a noob's perspective

#35

Post by leovander » Wed, Apr 23, 2025, 5:16 PM UTC

alganet wrote: post #24

What is vibe coding anyway? A new and improved version of old RAD (rapid application development)? Can we apply something from the decades of debate regarding RAD to the new undefined thing? I don't know, someone told me undefined values are hard to deal with.

https://youtu.be/IACHfKmZMr8?si=kiTOU7NpoQEwC6kj&t=45

Re: I won't be vibe coding anymore: a noob's perspective

#36

Post by CharlesW » Wed, Apr 23, 2025, 5:17 PM UTC

magicink81 wrote: post #7

One problem I have is that AI is writing code I don't understand completely, yet I'm still responsible for it. Vibe coding seems like an echo from the future.

> One problem I have is that AI is writing code I don't understand completely, yet I'm still responsible for it.

With vibe coding, you are as much a reviewer/editor as an author, and as an editor should never accept generated code that you don't understand. Happily, the same technology that generated the code can explain the code.

Re: I won't be vibe coding anymore: a noob's perspective

#37

Post by doubleorseven » Wed, Apr 23, 2025, 5:17 PM UTC

I was programming 14 years without LLM so I'm not sure I can relate, but -

Agents got really good lately in explaining what they did, which makes it easier to skim over the "boilerplate" and focus on the main event it produced.

Also I got really good with agents since I spend half of my day talking in my head to an agent and focusing on how to build my prompt and what questions and areas I want it to ask me about before I set it free.

It's not really vibe coding but actuall vibe coding never worked for me, it usually get stuck in a loop of "let me fix a linter issue" and "i didn't implemented this interface correctly".

Re: I won't be vibe coding anymore: a noob's perspective

#38

Post by 1970-01-01 » Wed, Apr 23, 2025, 5:17 PM UTC

>had built a few useful apps with ai, but a nagging question kept me awake - what was the point of it all if i didn’t learn a thing?

His point is juxtaposed with a mid-sentence break, but it is non-contradictory. This thought confounds me greatly.

Re: I won't be vibe coding anymore: a noob's perspective

#39

Post by barrell » Wed, Apr 23, 2025, 5:17 PM UTC

billy99k wrote: post #5

"that’s when it struck me. coding isn’t about the finished product. its a lot like writing. its about the process. its about how you approach a problem. its critical thinking." From a business perspective, they don't care about this. They just want it built as inexpensively as possible in a reasonable time frame. Vibe coding is here to stay.

Just coupled with that quote, that’s like saying publishers don’t care about the writing process, they just care about whether the book sells.

Which yeah, of course, that their job. It’s the authors job to write a good book. The publisher needing to sell books doesn’t contradict or supercede the authors need to write well or develop their process.

Re: I won't be vibe coding anymore: a noob's perspective

#40

Post by pliuchkin » Wed, Apr 23, 2025, 5:18 PM UTC

esalman wrote: post #16

billy99k wrote: post #5

"that’s when it struck me. coding isn’t about the finished product. its a lot like writing. its about the process. its about how you approach a problem. its critical thinking." From a business perspective, they don't care about this. They just want it built as inexpensively as possible in a reasonable time frame. Vibe coding is here to stay.

What is coding without critical thinking? I never vibe coded, and I don't understand this trend AT ALL. I read how copilot and such are detrimental to critical thinking, and I am even consciously scaling back on copilot use now whenever possible, and prioritizing Google search, reading documentation, blog posts and stackoverflow now.

"I am even consciously scaling back on copilot use now whenever possible, and prioritizing Google search, reading documentation, blog posts and stackoverflow now."

Very soon we will run out of human written articles.