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Vibe coding creates fatigue?

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Re: Vibe coding creates fatigue?

#41

Post by Rperry2174 »

Zigurd wrote: post #10

I don't want to be that contrarian guy, but I find it energizing to go faster. For example, being able to blast through a list of niggling defects that need to be fixed is no longer a stultifying drag. I recently used a coding agent on a project where I was using an unfamiliar language, framework, API, and protocol. It was a non-trivial project, and I had to be paying attention to what the agent was doing because it…

I think both experience are true.

AI removes boredome AND removes the natural pauses where understanding used to form..

energy goes up, but so does the kind of "compression" of cognitive things.

I think its less a quesiton of "faster" or "slower" but rather who controls the tempo

Re: Vibe coding creates fatigue?

#42

Post by waltbosz »

> One reason developers are developers is the dopamine loop > You write code, it doesn’t work, you fix it, it works, great! Dopamine rush. Several dozens or a hundred times a day.

This statement resonates with me. Vibe coding gets the job done quickly, but without the same joy. I used to think that it was the finished product that I liked to create, but maybe it's the creative process of building. It's like LEGO kits, the fun is putting them together, not looking at the finished model.

On the flip side, coding sessions where I bang my head against the wall trying to figure out some black box were never enjoyable. Nor was writing POCOs, boilerplate, etc.

Re: Vibe coding creates fatigue?

#43

Post by habinero »

crazygringo wrote: post #22
happytoexplain wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm getting increasingly confused as to why some people are broadening the use of "vibe" coding to just mean any AI coding, no matter how thorough/thoughtful.

It's because the term itself got overapplied by people critical of LLMs -- they dismissed all LLM-assisted coding as "vibe coding" because they were prejudiced against LLMs. Then lots of people were introduced to the term "vibe coding" in these conversations, and so naturally took it as a synonym for using LLMs for coding assistance even when reading the code and writing tests and such. Also because vibe coding just…

I mean, that's the joke. "vibe coding" only sounds cool if you don't know how to code but horrific if you do.

Re: Vibe coding creates fatigue?

#44

Post by lukan »

observationist wrote: post #34
Zigurd wrote: post #10

I don't want to be that contrarian guy, but I find it energizing to go faster. For example, being able to blast through a list of niggling defects that need to be fixed is no longer a stultifying drag. I recently used a coding agent on a project where I was using an unfamiliar language, framework, API, and protocol. It was a non-trivial project, and I had to be paying attention to what the agent was doing because it…

There's something exhilarating about pushing through to some "everything works like I think it should" point, and you can often get there without doing the conscientious, diligent, methodical "right" way of doing things, and it's only getting easier. At the point where everything works, if it's not just a toy or experiment, you definitely have to go back and understand everything. There will be a ton to fix, and it m…

"It was a non-trivial project, and I had to be paying attention to what the agent was doing"

There is a big difference between vibe coding and llm assisted coding and the poster above seems to be aware of it.

Re: Vibe coding creates fatigue?

#45

Post by jmalicki »

louthy wrote: post #33
Zigurd wrote: post #10

I don't want to be that contrarian guy, but I find it energizing to go faster. For example, being able to blast through a list of niggling defects that need to be fixed is no longer a stultifying drag. I recently used a coding agent on a project where I was using an unfamiliar language, framework, API, and protocol. It was a non-trivial project, and I had to be paying attention to what the agent was doing because it…

> But not having to spend hours here and there getting up to speed on some mundane but unfamiliar aspect of the implementation Red flag. In other words you don’t understand the implementation well enough to know if the AI has done a good job. So the work you have committed may work or it may have subtle artefacts/bugs that you’re not aware of, because doing the job properly isn’t of interest to you. This is ‘phoning…

Learning an unfamiliar aspect and doing it be hand will have the same issues. If you're new to Terraform, you are new to Terraform, and are probably going to even insert more footguns than the AI.

At least when the AI does it you can review it.

Re: Vibe coding creates fatigue?

#46

Post by nancyminusone »

namrog84 wrote: post #17
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like people using “bricked” to signal recoverable situations. “Oh the latest update bricked my phone and I had to factory-reset it, but it’s ok now”. Bricked used to mean it turned into something as useful as a brick, permanently.

I've also seen the term. You've been permanently banned for 12 hours. Instead of temporarily suspended. Whatever happened to the word suspended for temporary and ban for permanent and places say permanent with an expiration date.

My favorite one of these is "electrocuted" meaning "to be killed by electricity".

Nobody alive has ever been electrocuted, but you will meet people who claim to have been.

Re: Vibe coding creates fatigue?

#47

Post by habinero »

viccis wrote: post #31
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like people using “bricked” to signal recoverable situations. “Oh the latest update bricked my phone and I had to factory-reset it, but it’s ok now”. Bricked used to mean it turned into something as useful as a brick, permanently.

I'm not sure how common this is in other countries, but Americans would rather add another definition to the dictionary for the misuse before they'd ever tolerate being corrected or (god forbid) learning the real meaning of a word. I got dogpiled for saying this about "factoid" the other day here, but sometimes when people misuse words like "bricked" or "electrocuted", the ambiguity does actually make a difference, m…

Languages evolve, my dude. It's common everywhere.

Re: Vibe coding creates fatigue?

#48

Post by visarga »

Rperry2174 wrote: post #41
Zigurd wrote: post #10

I don't want to be that contrarian guy, but I find it energizing to go faster. For example, being able to blast through a list of niggling defects that need to be fixed is no longer a stultifying drag. I recently used a coding agent on a project where I was using an unfamiliar language, framework, API, and protocol. It was a non-trivial project, and I had to be paying attention to what the agent was doing because it…

I think both experience are true. AI removes boredome AND removes the natural pauses where understanding used to form.. energy goes up, but so does the kind of "compression" of cognitive things. I think its less a quesiton of "faster" or "slower" but rather who controls the tempo

After 4 hours of vibe coding I feel as tired as a full day of manual coding. The speed can be too much. If I only use it for a few minutes or an hour, it feels energising.

Re: Vibe coding creates fatigue?

#49

Post by lukan »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #37
happytoexplain wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm getting increasingly confused as to why some people are broadening the use of "vibe" coding to just mean any AI coding, no matter how thorough/thoughtful.

Words don't have meaning in 2025. A negative but courteous remark is "slamming", a tweet is an "attack", etc. So yeah I'm not surprised that people conflate any use of AI with vibe-coding.

Words changed meaning all the time through history, it just happens faster.

Re: Vibe coding creates fatigue?

#50

Post by louthy »

jmalicki wrote: post #45
louthy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But not having to spend hours here and there getting up to speed on some mundane but unfamiliar aspect of the implementation Red flag. In other words you don’t understand the implementation well enough to know if the AI has done a good job. So the work you have committed may work or it may have subtle artefacts/bugs that you’re not aware of, because doing the job properly isn’t of interest to you. This is ‘phoning…

Learning an unfamiliar aspect and doing it be hand will have the same issues. If you're new to Terraform, you are new to Terraform, and are probably going to even insert more footguns than the AI. At least when the AI does it you can review it.

> Learning an unfamiliar aspect and doing it be hand will have the same issues. If you're new to Terraform, you are new to Terraform

Which is why you spend time upfront becoming familiar with whatever it is you need to implement. Otherwise it’s just programming by coincidence [1], which is how amateurs write code.

> and are probably going to even insert more footguns than the AI.

Very unlikely. If I spend time understanding a domain then I tend to make fewer errors when working within that domain.

> At least when the AI does it you can review it.

You can’t review something you don’t understand.

[1] https://dev.to/decoeur_/programming-by-coincidence-dont-do-i...

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