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After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand

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Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand

#451

Post by dwaltrip »

thesz wrote: post #106
ap99 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's your job. Exactly. AI assisted development isn't all or nothing. We as a group and as individuals need to figure out the right blend of AI and human.

> AI assisted development isn't all or nothing. > We as a group and as individuals need to figure out the right blend of AI and human. This is what makes current LLM debate very much like the strong typing debate about 15-20 years ago. "We as a group need to figure out the right blend of strong static and weak dynamic typing." One can look around and see where that old discussion brought us. In my opinion, nowhere, t…

As a former “types are overrated” person, Typescript was my conversion moment.

For small projects, I don’t think it makes a huge difference.

But for large projects, I’d guess that most die-hard dynamic people who have tried typescript have now seen the light and find lots of benefits to static typing.

Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand

#452

Post by zephen »

ern_ave wrote: post #414
zephen wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a recent HN article had a bunch of comments lamenting that nobody ever uses XML any more, and talking about how much better it was than things like JSON. The only thing I think I learned from some of those exchanges was that xslt adherents are approximately as vocal as lisp adherents.

> a recent HN article had a bunch of comments lamenting that nobody ever uses XML any more I still use it from time to time for config files that a developer has to write. I find it easier to read that JSON, and it supports comments. Also, the distinction between attributes and children is often really nice to have. You can shoehorn that into JSON of course, but native XML does it better. Obviously, I would never use…

> Obviously, I would never use it for data interchange (e.g. SOAP) anymore.

Well, those comments were arguing about how it is the absolute best for data interchange.

> I still use it from time to time for config files that a developer has to write.

Even back when XML was still relatively hot, I recalled thinking that it solved a problem that a lot of developers didn't have.

Because if, for example, you're writing Python or Javascript or Perl, it is dead easy to have Python or Javascript or Perl also be your configuration file language.

I don't know what language you use, but 20 years ago, I viewed XML as a Java developer's band-aid.

Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand

#453

Post by thesz »

hxugufjfjf wrote: post #429
thesz wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bulgarian Method does not have rest days: https://www.mashelite.com/the-bulgarian-method-is-worth-a-lo... Alexander Zass (Iron Samson) also trained each day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Zass "He was taken as a prisoner of war four times, but managed to escape each time. As a prisoner, he pushed and pulled his cell bars as part of strength training, which was cited as an example of the effectiveness of iso…

They are until you get injured, burned out or both and stop training all together.

If you do a single set of half of exercises you need to train each day of the week, rotating these halves, you get 3 and a half sets of each exercise per week.

Training volume of Bulgarian Method is not much bigger than that of regular training splits like Sheiko or something like that, if bigger at all. What is more frequent is the stimulation of muscles and nervous system paths and BM adapts to that - one does high percentage of one's current max, essentially, one is training with what is available to one's body at the time.

Also, ultra long distance runners regenerate cartilages: https://ryortho.com/2015/12/what-ultra-long-distance-runners...

Our bodies are amazing.

Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand

#454

Post by MyHonestOpinon »

orev wrote: post #27
recursivedoubts wrote: post #8

AI is incredibly dangerous because it can do the simple things very well, which prevents new programmers from learning the simple things ("Oh, I'll just have AI generate it") which then prevents them from learning the middlin' and harder and meta things at a visceral level. I'm a CS teacher, so this is where I see a huge danger right now and I'm explicit with my students about it: you HAVE to write the code. You CAN'…

It’s like weightlifting: sure you can use a forklift to do it, but if the goal is to build up your own strength, using the forklift isn’t going to get you there. This is the ultimate problem with AI in academia. We all inherently know that “no pain no gain” is true for physical tasks, but the same is true for learning. Struggling through the new concepts is essentially the point of it, not just the end result. Of cou…

Thanks for the analogy. But I think students may think to themselves:"Why do I need to be stronger if I can use a forklift?"

Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand

#455

Post by antod »

hyperpape wrote: post #76
orev wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s like weightlifting: sure you can use a forklift to do it, but if the goal is to build up your own strength, using the forklift isn’t going to get you there. This is the ultimate problem with AI in academia. We all inherently know that “no pain no gain” is true for physical tasks, but the same is true for learning. Struggling through the new concepts is essentially the point of it, not just the end result. Of cou…

How seriously do you mean the analogy? I think forklifts probably carry more weight over longer distances than people do (though I could be wrong, 8 billion humans carrying small weights might add up). Certainly forklifts have more weight * distance when you restrict to objects that are over 100 pounds, and that seems like a good decision.

I feel we are on the cusp of a new era... Civil Engineering bridge analogies about to be replaced by forklift analogies.

Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand

#456

Post by m463 »

recursivedoubts wrote: post #8

AI is incredibly dangerous because it can do the simple things very well, which prevents new programmers from learning the simple things ("Oh, I'll just have AI generate it") which then prevents them from learning the middlin' and harder and meta things at a visceral level. I'm a CS teacher, so this is where I see a huge danger right now and I'm explicit with my students about it: you HAVE to write the code. You CAN'…

I just think it's like hitting the snooze button.

Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand

#457

Post by boredtofears »

draebek wrote: post #444
boredtofears wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an example: I recently inherited an over decade old web project full of EOL'd libraries and OS packages that desperately needed to be modernized. Within 3 hours I had a working test suite with 80% code coverage on core business functionality (~300 tests). Now - maybe the tests aren't the best designs given there is no way I could review that many tests in 3 hours, but I know empirically that they cover a major…

You know they cause a majority of the code of the core logic to execute, right? Are you sure the tests actually check that those bits of logic are doing the right thing? I've had Claude et al. write me plenty of tests that exercise things and then explicitly swallow errors and pass.

Yes, the first hour or so was spent fidgeting with test creation. It started out doing it's usual whacky behavior like checking the existence of a method and calling that a "pass", creating a mock object that mocked the return result of the logic it was supposed to be testing, and (my favorite) copying the logic out of the code and putting it directly into the test. Lots of course correction, but once I had one well written test that I had fully proofed myself I just provided it that test as an example and it did a pretty good job following those patterns for the remainder. I still sniffed out all the output for LLM whackiness though. Using a code coverage tool also helps a lot.

Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand

#458

Post by hn_acc1 »

port11 wrote: post #370
WorldMaker wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people used to get strong naturally because they had to do physical labor I think that's a bit of a myth. The Greeks and Romans had weightlifting and boxing gyms, but no forklifts. Many of the most renowned Romans in the original form of the Olympics and in Boxing were Roman Senators with the wealth and free time to lift weights and box and wrestle. One of the things that we know about the famous philosopher Plato…

I can’t attest to the entire past, but my ancestors on both sides were farmers or construction workers. They were fit. Heck, my dad has a beer gut at 65 but still has arm muscles that’ll put me to shame — someone lifting weights once a week. I’ve had to do construction for a summer and everyone there was in good shape. They don’t go to the gym, they don’t have the energy; the job shapes you. More or less the same for…

My dad was a machinist, apprenticed in Germany after WW2. Always somewhat overweight (5'9", 225 lbs during his "peak" years), but he could lift guys up by their belt with one arm, and pick up and move 200+ lb metal billets when he got too impatient to wheel the crane over. Even at 85 now, he's probably stronger in his arms than most 60 year olds. But I'm also not saying ALL of his co-workers were that strong, either.

Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand

#459

Post by phailhaus »

acessoproibido wrote: post #223
phailhaus wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't write sorting code or assembly code because you were going to need to write it on the job. It gave you a grounding for how datastructures and computers work on a fundamental level. That intuition is what makes picking up minecraft hack mods much easier.

That's the koolaid, but seriously I don't really believe it anymore. I only had to do this leg work during university to prove that I can be allowed to try and write code for a living. The grounding as you call it is not required for that at all,since im a dozen levels of abstraction removed from it. It might be useful if I was a researcher or would work on optimizing complex cutting edge stuff, but 99% of what I do…

But nobody go to college specifically training to do CRUD apps. The point is to give you broad training so that you can do CRUD apps and other stuff too. It is a very bad idea to give extremely specific training at scale, because then you get a workforce that has difficulty adapting to changes. It's like trying to manage a planned economy: there is no point in trying to predict exactly what jobs you will get, so let's make sure you can handle whatever's thrown at you.

Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand

#460

Post by h4kunamata »

AI can be good under the right circumstances but only if reviewed 100% of the time by a human.

Homelab is my hobby where I run Proxmox, Debian VM, DNS, K8s, etc, all managed via Ansible.

For what it is worth, I hate docker :)

I wanted to setup a private tracker torrent that should include:

1) Jackett: For the authentication

2) Radarr: The inhouse browser

3) qBitorrent: which receives the torrent files automatically from Radarr

4) Jellyfin: Of course :)

I used ChatGPT to assist me into getting the above done as simple as possible and all done via Ansible:

1) Ansible playbook to setup a Debian LXC Proxmox container

2) Jackett + Radarr + qBitorrent all in one for simplicity

3) Wireguard VPN + Proton VPN: If the VPN ever go down, the entire container network must stop (IPTables) so my home IP isn't leaked.

After 3 nights I got everything working and running 24/7, but it required a lot of review so it can be managed 10 years down the road instead of WTF is this???

There were silly mistakes that make you question "Why am I even using this tool??" but then I remember, Google and search engines are dead. It would have taken me weeks to get this done otherwise, AI tools speed that process by fetching the info I need so I can put them together.

I use AI purely to replace the broken state of search engines, even Brave and DuckDuckGo, I know what I am asking it, not just copy/paste and hope it works.

I have colleagues also into IT field whose the company where they work are fully AI, full access to their environment, they no longer do the thinking, they just press the button. These people are cooked, not just because of the state of AI, if they ever go look for another job, all they did for years was press a button!!

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