Vibe coding is mad depressing • Hacker News Board

Re: Vibe coding is mad depressing

#41

Post by irjustin » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 4:57 AM UTC

satvikpendem wrote: post #6

This article is not about vibe coding per se, it's about not having strong boundaries between you as the developer, and your client. You should not be allowing the client to dictate how you work, much less them having the permissions to merge in code. This was true before AI too, where clients might say, do X this way, and you should simply say no, because they are paying for your expertise*. It's like hiring a plumb…

Us developers are experiencing what designers have had to deal with for decades.

2009 anyone? https://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell

Re: Vibe coding is mad depressing

#42

Post by tatenda-ron » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 5:00 AM UTC

WhyOhWhyQ wrote: post #18

For me vibecoding has a similar feeling to a big bag of Doritos. It's really fun at first to slap down 10k lines of code in an afternoon knowing this is just an indulgence. I think AI is actually really useful for getting a quick view of some library or feature. Also, you can learn a lot if you approach it the right way. However, every time I do any amount of vibecoding eventually it just transitions into pure lethar…

Great analogy. Instead of eating the whole bag of doritos in one sitting, do it in phases. So instead of being just a QA tester, you get to pause, reflect and try to make sure you and the AI are on the same page.

Re: Vibe coding is mad depressing

#43

Post by balls187 » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 5:00 AM UTC

rcruzeiro wrote: post #20

satvikpendem wrote: post #6

This article is not about vibe coding per se, it's about not having strong boundaries between you as the developer, and your client. You should not be allowing the client to dictate how you work, much less them having the permissions to merge in code. This was true before AI too, where clients might say, do X this way, and you should simply say no, because they are paying for your expertise*. It's like hiring a plumb…

Back when I saw doing freelance work, the worst type of client was the one who was semi-technical, meaning they were technical enough to write code that they wanted to contribute to the project or to have strong architectural opinions, but not technical enough to understand the nuances and the implications of their suggestions. I guess that, with vibe coding, it is very easy for every client to become like this.

> but not technical enough to understand the nuances and the implications of their suggestions.

That isn't unique to "clients." It's human nature. Human's don't know what they don't know.

See: various exploits since computers were a thing.

Re: Vibe coding is mad depressing

#44

Post by kridsdale1 » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 5:03 AM UTC

randallsquared wrote: post #35

> Okay, so this non-technical person is sending me codes now. I started wondering if this person was actually a developer here. Maybe just a typo, or maybe a dialect thing, but does anyone actually use "codes" as a plural?

Always assume the author is ESL in these situations.

Re: Vibe coding is mad depressing

#45

Post by jgilias » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 5:03 AM UTC

randallsquared wrote: post #35

> Okay, so this non-technical person is sending me codes now. I started wondering if this person was actually a developer here. Maybe just a typo, or maybe a dialect thing, but does anyone actually use "codes" as a plural?

It’s not just that, there are other things in the article pointing to the person being a non-native English speaker. Which is fine, I’m one too.

It’s somehow ironic though that his written output could’ve been improved by running it through an AI tool.

Re: Vibe coding is mad depressing

#46

Post by rtp4me » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 5:04 AM UTC

uwagar wrote: post #40

u should abuse the non technical person sending you code. not say "thanks, though"

What does this mean? How are you going to abuse them? Something is missing here...

Re: Vibe coding is mad depressing

#47

Post by kinj28 » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 5:06 AM UTC

I run a low code platform for building internal tools & software. One of my prospect about to sign a contract came back telling me that his CTO has asked him to check vibe code tools and build a few internal tools with them. They are a large series D/E company and have over 250 internal tools built on retool (a service that they are migrating from). CTO is puzzled & is thinking if does he even need a platform to build & manage internal tools.

On other hand -- another customer of mine built a few internal tools with vibe code (& yes he does have subscription to my low code service) but then when newer requests came for upgrade thats where his vibe coded app started acting up. His candid feedback was -- for internal tools vibe code doesnt work.

As a service provider for low code --> we are now providing full fledged vibe code tooling on top. While I dont know how customers who do not wish to code and just have the software will be able to upkeep these softwares without needing professionals.

Re: Vibe coding is mad depressing

#48

Post by wvenable » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 5:09 AM UTC

112233 wrote: post #33

WhyOhWhyQ wrote: post #18

For me vibecoding has a similar feeling to a big bag of Doritos. It's really fun at first to slap down 10k lines of code in an afternoon knowing this is just an indulgence. I think AI is actually really useful for getting a quick view of some library or feature. Also, you can learn a lot if you approach it the right way. However, every time I do any amount of vibecoding eventually it just transitions into pure lethar…

I have yet to find the niche where it is "good at the beginning". So far I've mostly tried asking to build C tools that use advanced linux API. Me: hey make this, detailed-spec.txt AI: okidoki (barfs 9k lines in 15 minutes) all done and tested! Me looks at the code, that has feature-sounding names, but all features are stubs, all tests are stubs, and it does not compile. Me: it does not compile. AI: Yes, but the code…

I'm not sure what you're using. I've used Claude in agent mode to port a very complex and spaghetti coded C application to nicely structured C++. The original code was so intertwined that I didn't want to figure out so I had shelved the project until AI came along.

It wasn't super bad at converting the code but even it struggled with some of the logic. Luckily, I had it design a test suite to compare the outputs of the old application and the new one. When it couldn't figure out why it was getting different results, it would start generating hex dumps comparisons, writing small python programs, and analyzing the results to figure out where it had gone wrong. It slowly iterated on each difference until it had resolved them. Building the code, running the test suite, comparing the results, changing the code, repeat. Some of the issues are likely bugs in the original code (that it fixed) but since I was going for byte-for-byte perfection it had to re-introduce them.

The issues you describe I have seen but not with the right technology and not in a while.

Re: Vibe coding is mad depressing

#49

Post by cweagans » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 5:12 AM UTC

ekropotin wrote: post #28

Just want to highlight that gmnz.xyz domain is on UCEPROTECTL3 blacklist.

IMO, UCEPROTECTL3 is a scam and it's not worth even acknowledging their existence. https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/eur4ju/removal_fr... among many other similar posts.

https://www.uceprotect.net/en/index.php?m=7&s=8 -- "pay us to fix a problem that we've caused, and if you have the gall to call it what it is (extortion), then we'll publish your email and be massive dicks about it"

(To be clear, not all spam blacklists are scams - just UCEPROTECTL3 specifically)

Re: Vibe coding is mad depressing

#50

Post by goosejuice » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 5:13 AM UTC

satvikpendem wrote: post #21

tptacek wrote: post #8

All the consulting practice arguments aside, this is fundamentally a gatekeeping argument about clients staying in their lane. I'm sure doctors feel the same way about patients with weirdly specific questions about HFpEF diagnoses. Doctors have always hated "Doctor Google", and now they have to contend with "Doctor GPT". It's up to you how much sympathy to have for them.

Not related to other types of clients, but for doctors and patients specifically, I have heard stories where doctors dismissed patients' concerns until the patients themselves googled and found out exactly what issue they had and then the doctors were much more amenable to solving it [0]. Indeed, [1] > researchers found that searching symptoms online modestly boosted patients’ ability to accurately diagnose health is…

It's not at all difficult for a scientifically literate person to be more up to date on the literature of something they have, or could have, than even a specialist in that broad area. There's too many disorders and not enough time.

I have something that about a quarter percent of individuals have in the US. A young specialist would know how to treat based on guidelines but beyond that there's little benefit in keeping up to date with the latest research unless it's a special interest for them (unlikely).

Good physicans are willing to read what their patients send them and adjust the care accordingly. Prevention in particular is problematic in the US. Informed patients will have better outcomes.