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The cult of vibe coding is dogfooding run amok

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Re: The cult of vibe coding is dogfooding run amok

#301

Post by xienze »

tombert wrote: post #291
xienze wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At some point I think it makes more sense to fine tune the prompts to get increasingly more specific and just regenerate the the code based on that spec, and store that in Git. Generating code using a non-deterministic code generator is a bold strategy. Just gotta hope that your next pull of the code slot machine doesn’t introduce a bug or ten.

We're already merging code that has generated bugs from the slot machine. People aren't actually reading through 10,000 line pull requests most of the time, and people aren't really reviewing every line of code. Given that, we should instead tune the prompts well enough to not leave things to chance. Write automated tests to make sure that inputs and outputs are ok, write your specs so specifically that there's no ro…

> Write automated tests to make sure that inputs and outputs are ok

Write them by hand or generate them and check them in? You can’t escape the non-determinism inherent in LLMs. Eventually something has to be locked in place, be it the application code or the test code. So you can’t just have the LLM generate tests from a spec dynamically either.

> write your specs so specifically that there's no room for ambiguity

Using English prose, well known for its lack of ambiguity. Even extremely detailed RFCs have historically left lots of room for debate about meaning and intention. That’s the problem with not using actual code to “encode” how the system functions.

I get where you’re coming from but I think it’s a flawed idea. Less flawed than checking in vibe-coded feature changes, but still flawed.

Re: The cult of vibe coding is dogfooding run amok

#302

Post by dd8601fn »

f-serif wrote: post #246
dd8601fn wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta has four different implementations of the same page to create a “page” for your business… which is required to be able to advertise on any of their services. Each one is broken, doesn’t have working error handling, and prevents you from giving them money. They all exist to insert the same record somewhere. Lost revenue, and they seem to have no idea. Amazons flagship ios app has had at least three highly visible…

It's just lazy engineering. They get assigned a task, they must implement it or fix it to keep their job. Proper implantation takes more knowledge, more research and more brain pressure. AI could play a big rule here. Husky (git hook) but AI. It will score lazy engineering. You lazy implement enough times, you loose your job.

I just can’t wrap my head around it.

Maybe there’s a reason Netflix makes you click on the ONE user profile on the account, repeatedly, even if it feels like sheer stupidity to their users. At least it’s not costing them revenue, directly.

Amazons ios app not properly handling state change after checkout, for years? Probably not directly costing them millions. Only second order disengagement.

But Walmart keeps pushing a thing you don’t want, because you looked at it once? Amazon solved this. It’s not a major fix, and it’s using a valuable slot that costs them money. Walmart just doesn’t fix it.

Meta refusing to take people’s advertising dollars because ALL of their page creation pages have unhandled breaking flows in them? That’s lost money for no reason at all. And you’re telling me they don’t realize how janky it is to try to maintain four implementations of that?

Apple App Store Connect and Ads platform? Don’t get me started.

Again, all with unlimited pools of the smartest people on earth, unlimited AI, and a billion people testing for them…

Re: The cult of vibe coding is dogfooding run amok

#303

Post by stefan_ »

semicolon_storm wrote: post #14

It’s truly strange that people keep citing the quality of Claude code’s leaked source as if it’s proof vibe coding doesn’t work. If anything, it’s the exact opposite. It shows that you can build a crazy popular & successful product while violating all the traditional rules about “good” code.

We are all using Claude despite Claude Code. The day ChudCorp releases a superior model Chud, we are all gone in an instant. There is no moat.

Re: The cult of vibe coding is dogfooding run amok

#304

Post by esafak »

dcre wrote: post #284
quikoa wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Claude Code truly was worth something they'd sell it instead of forcing its use with a subscription.

Incredible take. They are selling it.

No, they are not. People just want the model. Let people bring their own harness to their Anthropic subscription and see who's still using CC.

Re: The cult of vibe coding is dogfooding run amok

#305

Post by tombert »

zephen wrote: post #277
tombert wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm just a little tired of seeing these pull requests of multi-thousand-line pull requests where no one has actually looked at the code. The solution people are coming up with now is using AI for code reviews and I have to ask "why involve Git at all then?". If AI is writing the code, testing the code, reviewing the code, and merging the code, then it seems to me that we can just remove these steps and simply P…

> why involve Git at all then? I made a similar point 3 weeks ago. It wasn't very well received. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47411693 You don't actually need source control to be able to roll back to any particular version that was in use. A series of tarballs will let you do that. The entire purpose of source control is to let you reason about change sets to help you make decisions about the direction that…

> are they still using it because they don't want to admit to themselves that they've completely lost control?

I think this is the case, or at least close.

I think a lot of people are still convincing themselves that they are the ones "writing" it because they're the ones putting their names on the pull request.

It reminds me of a lot of early Java, where it would make you feel like you were being very productive because everything that would take you eight lines in any other language would take thirty lines across three files to do in Java. Even though you didn't really "do" anything (and indeed Netbeans or IntelliJ or Eclipse was likely generating a lot of that bootstrapping code anyway), people would act like they were doing a lot of work because of a high number of lines of code.

Java is considerably less terrible now, to a point where I actually sort of begrudgingly like writing it, but early Java (IMO before Java 21 and especially before 11) was very bad about unnecessary verbosity.

Re: The cult of vibe coding is dogfooding run amok

#306

Post by poisonborz »

jschveibinz wrote: post #215
aerhardt wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Distributing an app to 100 users inside an enterprise is already a hellish nightmare and I'm pretty convinced that citizen developers will never be a thing - we'll sooner reach the singularity.

Here's my take: I think that citizen developers will be a thing--but not in the way you might be thinking. More people will be enabled (and empowered) to "build" quick-and-dirty solutions to personal problems by just talking to their phone: "I need way to track my food by telling you what I ate and then you telling me how much I have left for today. And suggest what my next meal should be." In the current paradigm--w…

Almost everything requires a UI. There's just nothing faster than quick glances and taps. It's why voice assistants or hand-waving gesture controls never took over. Having an agent code all those - possibly very complex things - is just impossible without AGI. How would it even work?

- Would the agent go through current app user flows OpenClaw style? Wildly insecure, error-prone, expensive.

- Tapping in to some sort of third party APIs/MCPs. authed, metered, documented how and by which standard to be not abused and hacked?

The unhyped truth is that LLMs are just wildly more competent autocomplete, and there is no such disruption in sight. The status quo of developers and users mostly remains.

Re: The cult of vibe coding is dogfooding run amok

#308

Post by kennywinker »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #126
kennywinker wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the thing is that people expect one of the largest companies in the world to have well written code. Claude’s source code is fine for a 1-3 person team. It’s atrocious for a flagship product from a company valued over $380 BILLION. Like if that’s the best ai coding can do given infinite money? Yeah, the emperor has no clothes. If it’s not the best that can be done, then what kinda clowns are running the show…

I just think this is the nature of all software, and it was wrong to assume AI fundamentally changes it. Seems like you're also under the impression that privately developed software should be immaculate if the company is worth enough billions, but you'd be wrong about that too.

I mean, that’s probably part of it. Many times when I have gotten a glimpse under the hood of load-bearing parts of the economy / technology i have been shocked by the mess that i see. Xkcd #2347 is somewhat applicable here. But the trend towards vibe coding is making the cracks in the surface bigger. Like, think why do we even have access to Claude’s source code?

Re: The cult of vibe coding is dogfooding run amok

#309

Post by johanyc »

diarrhea wrote: post #232
hintymad wrote: post #107

It looks vibe coding, or at AI coding in general, has been challenging a few empirical laws: - Brooks' No Silver Bullet: no single technology or management technique will yield a 10-fold productivity improvement in software development within a decade. If we write a spec that details everything we want, we would write soemthing as specific as code. Currently people seem to believe that a lot of the fundamentals are w…

Interesting, though I disagree on basically all points... > No Silver Bullet As an industry, we do not know how to measure productivity. AI coding also does not increase reliability with how things are going. Same with simplicity, it's the opposite; we're adding obscene complexity, in the name of shipping features (the latter of which is not productivity ). In some areas I can see how AI doubles "productivity" (whate…

> The question is, will the market care? If software today goes wrong in 3% of cases, and with wide-spread Al use it'll be, say, 7%, will people care? Or will we just keep chugging along, happy with all the new, more featureful, but more faulty software?

This is THE question. I honestly think the majority will gladly take an imperfect app over waiting for a perfect app or perhaps having no app at all. Some devs might be able to stand out with a polished app taking the traditional approach but it takes a lot longer to achieve that and by that point the market may be different, which is a risk

Re: The cult of vibe coding is dogfooding run amok

#310

Post by pclowes »

Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #256

It’s so strange. I think there’s a few different groups: - Shills or people with a financial incentive - Software devs that either never really liked the craft to begin with or who have become jaded over time and are kind of sick of it. - New people that are actually experiencing real, maybe over-excitement about being able to build stuff for the first time. Forgetting the first group as that one is obvious. I’ve enc…

I don’t think that is true. I know several very high-performing engineers (some who could have retired a long time ago and are just in it for the love of the game) who use AI prolifically, without lowering any bars, and just deliver a lot more work.
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