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If you're going to vibe code, why not do it in C?

stephenramsay.net

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Re: If you're going to vibe code, why not do it in C?

#381

Post by alfalfasprout »

gitremote wrote: post #33

Software development jobs must be very diverse if even this anti-vibe-coding guy thinks AI coding definitely makes developers more productive. In my work, the bigger bottleneck to productivity is that very few people can correctly articulate requirements. I work in backend, API development, which is completely different from fullstack development with backend development. If you ask PMs about backend requirements, th…

This is one reason I think spec driven development is never really going to work the way people claim it should. It's MUCH harder to write a truly correct, comprehensive, and useful spec than the code in many cases.

Re: If you're going to vibe code, why not do it in C?

#382

Post by Eldt »

cujo wrote: post #122
gitremote wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company mandates AI usage and logs AI usage metrics as input to performance evaluation, so I use it every day. It's a Copilot subscription, though.

why though? are they just using it as a proxy for "is 'gitremote' working today?"

This is probably where they're getting their "90% of code is written with AI!!) metrics from

Re: If you're going to vibe code, why not do it in C?

#383

Post by kaladin-jasnah »

teach wrote: post #220
wavemode wrote: post #196

> if vibe coding is the future of software development (and it is), then why bother with languages that were designed for people who are not vibe coding? Shouldn’t there be such a thing as a “vibe-oriented programming language?” VOP. A language designed for vibe coding could certainly be useful, but what that means is the opposite of what the author thinks that means. The author thinks that such a language wouldn't n…

Sounds like Ada. A lot of the time, once you got your code to compile, it would work.

What about Lean?

Re: If you're going to vibe code, why not do it in C?

#386

Post by asimeqi »

gitremote wrote: post #33

Software development jobs must be very diverse if even this anti-vibe-coding guy thinks AI coding definitely makes developers more productive. In my work, the bigger bottleneck to productivity is that very few people can correctly articulate requirements. I work in backend, API development, which is completely different from fullstack development with backend development. If you ask PMs about backend requirements, th…

AI is making coding so cheap, you can now program a few versions of the API and choose what works better.

Re: If you're going to vibe code, why not do it in C?

#387

Post by IAmLiterallyAB »

peteforde wrote: post #168
INTPenis wrote: post #154

Because I don't know C well enough. My philosophy regarding AI is that you should never have it do something you couldn't do yourself. Of course people break this rule, or the concept of vibe coding wouldn't exist. But some of us actually get a lot of value from AI without succumbing to it. It just doesn't make sense to me to trust a machine's hallucinations for something like programming code. It fabricates things w…

I'm working on a serious embedded app written in C, and Opus has been invaluable to me. I don't consider myself a C developer, but by carefully reviewing the changes and making lots of my own contributions, I'm finding that I've progressed from junior to intermediate C comprehension. A lot of the idioms are still fuzzy, but I no longer find it intimidating. That's wonderful, because learning C has been something I'd…

Opus?

Re: If you're going to vibe code, why not do it in C?

#388

Post by adverbly »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #349
dlisboa wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then I realized that this constant start-stop process is literally melting my brain and making me unable to do any real work myself. It's basically having the same effect as scrolling any other algorithmic feed Yes, it’s extremely soul sucking. With the added disadvantage of not teaching me anything.

I felt this way too until I decided that my goal isn't to know things, it's to ship things.

I felt this way too until I decided that my goal isn't to ship things, it's to ship, support and improve existing things.

Re: If you're going to vibe code, why not do it in C?

#389

Post by didibus »

kesor wrote: post #354
didibus wrote: post #156

This is treating the LLM like it is the computer or has some kind of way of thinking. But LLM is a "language" model, I'm pretty sure the easier for human to read, the easier for LLM to learn and generate. Abstractions also benefit the model, it does not need to generate a working 2s complement, just a working call to addition of abstracted types. And just in my experience, I feel everyone is slowly learning, all mode…

Binary bits are also a language. A structured language that transistor-based computers execute into some result we humans find valuable. Why wouldn't a model be able to write these binary instructions directly? Why do we need all these layers in between? We don't.

Because the learned function to generate binary code is likely more complex than that for Python.

I admit I can't say for sure until we try it. If someone were to train a model at the same scale on the same amount of raw binary code as we do these models on raw language and code, would it perform better at generating working programs. Thing is, it would now fail to understand human language prompts.

From what I know and understand though, it seems like it would be more complex to achieve.

My meta point is, you shouldn't think of it as what would a computer most likely understand, because we're not talking about a CPU/GPU. You have to think, what would a transformer architecture deep neural net better learn and infer? Python or binary code? And I think from that lens it seems more likely it's Python.

Re: If you're going to vibe code, why not do it in C?

#390

Post by lisbbb »

MetaWhirledPeas wrote: post #311
gitremote wrote: post #33

Software development jobs must be very diverse if even this anti-vibe-coding guy thinks AI coding definitely makes developers more productive. In my work, the bigger bottleneck to productivity is that very few people can correctly articulate requirements. I work in backend, API development, which is completely different from fullstack development with backend development. If you ask PMs about backend requirements, th…

> very few people can correctly articulate requirements This is the new programming. Programming and requirements are both a form of semantics. One conveys meaning to a computer at a lower level, the other conveys it to a human at a higher level. Well now we need to convey it at a higher level to an LLM so it can take care of the lower-level translation. I wonder if the LLM will eventually skip the programming part a…

My solution as a consultant was to build some artifact that we could use as a starting point. Otherwise, you're sitting around spinning your wheels and billing big $ and the pressure is mounting. Building something at least allows you to demonstrate you are working on their behalf with the promise that it will be refined or completely changed as needed. It's very hard when you don't get people who can send down requirements, but that was like 100% of the places I worked. I very seldom ran into people who could articulate what they needed until I stepped up, showed them something they could sort of stand on, and then go from there.

Mythical Man Month had it all--build one to throw away.

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