Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why I don’t vibe code

jacobharr.is

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 119 posts

Re: Why I don’t vibe code

#31

Post by dpatterbee »

extr wrote: post #24
runarberg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tbh. Those are all good reasons not to drive. I my self would add: - They dangerous both to me as a driver, my passengers, and other road users, including pedestrians and bicyclists. - They ruin cities which constantly have to accommodate ever increasing number of cars by destroying previously walkable neighborhoods to make room for roads and parking. - They destroy our climate - They are loud. - Busses are nicer and…

You're welcome to feel that way but it's a luxury belief. In reality, outside of a few (one?) major city in the US with public transportation infrastructure, you need a car. 92% of people own a car, higher if you exclude the dense urban areas I'm talking about.

People only need cars because people have cars and cars make cities worse for everyone outside of one. If nobody owned cars everyone would get by just fine. It's a race to the bottom.

Re: Why I don’t vibe code

#32

Post by runarberg »

extr wrote: post #24
runarberg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tbh. Those are all good reasons not to drive. I my self would add: - They dangerous both to me as a driver, my passengers, and other road users, including pedestrians and bicyclists. - They ruin cities which constantly have to accommodate ever increasing number of cars by destroying previously walkable neighborhoods to make room for roads and parking. - They destroy our climate - They are loud. - Busses are nicer and…

You're welcome to feel that way but it's a luxury belief. In reality, outside of a few (one?) major city in the US with public transportation infrastructure, you need a car. 92% of people own a car, higher if you exclude the dense urban areas I'm talking about.

Car ownership is lowest in the lowest income brackets, and public transit ridership is highest among the lower income brackets. I really don‘t understand how you can reach your conclusion that not driving is a luxury. Data would suggest the exact opposite.

EDIT: To clarify on the public transit usage. The data is by-modal. Lower income levels are by far more likely to use road based public transit (such as busses), but high earners are more likely to live near a rail station and use rail based transit: https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/public-transit-access-and-inc...

Re: Why I don’t vibe code

#33

Post by ge96 »

wvenable wrote: post #11
Aurornis wrote: post #3

I thought this was going to be an article about intelligent use of LLM tools without vibecoding, but it's actually entirely against LLMs altogether. The person who wrote it used a free trial of some tool (most likely not a frontier model) and then gave up forever when the trial ran out. > I then tried using one of the AI tools to analyze my code in a project and a few other small tasks before it all came to an awkwar…

I'm using Github copilot and I ran out of requests before the end of the month; this happens from time to time. But last month was the first time I decided to try the cheap models that were still accessible to me just to see what they were capable of. They're dumb as rocks. I just don't know how many people have an overly negative opinion on AI assisted coding because they've just used the poor versions of these prod…

Get your company to pay for it (points to head)

Re: Why I don’t vibe code

#34

Post by idle_zealot »

eikenberry wrote: post #20
Aurornis wrote: post #3

I thought this was going to be an article about intelligent use of LLM tools without vibecoding, but it's actually entirely against LLMs altogether. The person who wrote it used a free trial of some tool (most likely not a frontier model) and then gave up forever when the trial ran out. > I then tried using one of the AI tools to analyze my code in a project and a few other small tasks before it all came to an awkwar…

> Acting like LLM use is a spectrum between doing everything manually or handing control over to the LLM and vibecoding everything is a tired strawman argument. But isn't the strawman here was that it wasn't a spectrum. That they couldn't just use it some, but all or nothing.

I think they meant "binary" rather than "spectrum".

Re: Why I don’t vibe code

#35

Post by leptons »

Aurornis wrote: post #3

I thought this was going to be an article about intelligent use of LLM tools without vibecoding, but it's actually entirely against LLMs altogether. The person who wrote it used a free trial of some tool (most likely not a frontier model) and then gave up forever when the trial ran out. > I then tried using one of the AI tools to analyze my code in a project and a few other small tasks before it all came to an awkwar…

I'm doing agentic coding with Claude Max, and it's like giving methamphetamine to a software developer.

When I run out of tokens, I pay for extra. It doesn't feel good, but I do it because I didn't write the codebase - the drug dealer did. Just one more "fix" and the code should be good to ship. Oh no, out of tokens again? Just one more "fix", and another.

And the code that the AI writes is sprawling and almost incomprehensibly complicated. Overly complicated. It's like a tweaker wrote it, on methamphetamine.

I can make this comparison because many years ago I once had an ex that put methamphetamine (I didn't realize they had an addiction) in one of my vitamin capsules "as a joke", and I was up for 36 hours straight writing convoluted code, and then writing voluminous notes about the code I had yet to write. I had never done that drug before, or since (why they are an ex). I don't even drink. After that episode I re-read what I had written and it was quite scattershot.

And now I get the same exact feeling when using AI to write code, or have it write tickets, or plan out something, etc.

I use these tools daily, and it's like putting a drug dealer between me and the code. Sure it writes a lot more code than I could write without it, but at what cost? I really don't like where this is headed. And I don't think most software developers using AI realize what is happening.

Re: Why I don’t vibe code

#36

Post by [deleted] »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #6
Aurornis wrote: post #3

I thought this was going to be an article about intelligent use of LLM tools without vibecoding, but it's actually entirely against LLMs altogether. The person who wrote it used a free trial of some tool (most likely not a frontier model) and then gave up forever when the trial ran out. > I then tried using one of the AI tools to analyze my code in a project and a few other small tasks before it all came to an awkwar…

Imagine being disappointed that an article is NOT clickbait :|

[deleted]

Re: Why I don’t vibe code

#38

Post by hootz »

extr wrote: post #16

This is like reading an article "I Don't Drive Cars" that goes on like - They're too expensive - My buddy's 1995 Accord breaks down a lot - Walking is healthier, plus you can stop and smell the roses - I enjoy caring for my horse - Sometimes you can get stuck in traffic Fine if that's the way you want and can afford to live your life. But it is an exotic luxury belief. For those of us who are participating in the eco…

Is this bait? What are you talking about? I just use public transport to go to work. Basically, all of those points about cars are correct, except for the last one because here you almost always get stuck in traffic during rush hours. Often buses get to a destination faster than cars because of Bus Rapid Transit.

EDIT: Oh, you are talking just about the US. Then your comparison doesn't make any sense because LLMs are available worldwide.

Re: Why I don’t vibe code

#39

Post by Aurornis »

wvenable wrote: post #11
Aurornis wrote: post #3

I thought this was going to be an article about intelligent use of LLM tools without vibecoding, but it's actually entirely against LLMs altogether. The person who wrote it used a free trial of some tool (most likely not a frontier model) and then gave up forever when the trial ran out. > I then tried using one of the AI tools to analyze my code in a project and a few other small tasks before it all came to an awkwar…

I'm using Github copilot and I ran out of requests before the end of the month; this happens from time to time. But last month was the first time I decided to try the cheap models that were still accessible to me just to see what they were capable of. They're dumb as rocks. I just don't know how many people have an overly negative opinion on AI assisted coding because they've just used the poor versions of these prod…

This article comes from a niche of people who read a lot of news articles about LLMs (links scattered throughout) but have also avoided learning about the tools directly.

Like you said, the models available on free trials are usually toys compared to what developers use. Even Opus and GPT-5.5 are available on $20/month plans and you can buy a single month to try it out. The way they write about paying for a tool seeming "absurd and horrific" says it all about the level of actual research that went into their understanding. It's entirely based on news headlines.

Re: Why I don’t vibe code

#40

Post by [deleted] »

leptons wrote: post #35
Aurornis wrote: post #3

I thought this was going to be an article about intelligent use of LLM tools without vibecoding, but it's actually entirely against LLMs altogether. The person who wrote it used a free trial of some tool (most likely not a frontier model) and then gave up forever when the trial ran out. > I then tried using one of the AI tools to analyze my code in a project and a few other small tasks before it all came to an awkwar…

I'm doing agentic coding with Claude Max, and it's like giving methamphetamine to a software developer. When I run out of tokens, I pay for extra. It doesn't feel good, but I do it because I didn't write the codebase - the drug dealer did. Just one more "fix" and the code should be good to ship. Oh no, out of tokens again? Just one more "fix", and another. And the code that the AI writes is sprawling and almost incom…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN