I still cannot make AI do anything with quality higher than the function level. I've been using it a lot to write some more complex functions and SQL with a quality level that I find good, but anything higher order and it's a complete clusterfuck. Cannot comprehend this world where people say they are building entire companies and whole products with it.
After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand
571–580 of 652 posts
Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand
#572Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're not crazy, I'm also always disappointed. My theory is that the people who are impressed are trying to build CRUD apps or something like that.
so 99% of all software?
Exactly. That's why you see so many people say it works great. And the rest of us are like "am I the crazy one?" No, you just don't build CRUD apps.
Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand
#573Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I feel like I get really good results from AI, and this is very much how I prompt as well. It just takes care of writing the code, making sure to update everything that is touched by that code guided by linters and type-checkers, but it's always executing my architecture and algorithm, and I spend time carefully trying to understand the problem before I even begin.
But this is what I don't get. Writing code is not that hard . If the act of physically typing my code out is a bottleneck to my process, I am doing something wrong . Either I've under-abstracted, or over-abstracted, or flat out have the wrong abstractions. It's time to sit back and figure out why there's a mismatch with the problem domain and come back at it from another direction. To me this reads like people have l…
> Writing code is not that hard.
It's not that hard, but it's not that easy. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. I'm a journalist who learned to code because it helped me do some stories that I wouldn't have done otherwise.
But I don't like to type out the code. It's just no fun to me to deal with what seem to me arbitrary syntax choices made by someone decades ago, or to learn new jargon for each language/tool (even though other languages/tools already have jargon for the exact same thing), or to wade through someone's undocumented code to understand how to use an imported function. If I had a choice, I'd rather learn a new human language than a programming one.
I think people like me, who (used to) code out of necessity but don't get much gratification out of it, are one of the primary targets of vibe coding.
Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand
#574I'm flabbergasted why anyone would voluntarily vibe code anything. For me, software engineering is a craft. You're supposed to enjoy building it. You should want to do it yourself.
I absolutely love programming. I enjoy creating software, trying out new languages and systems, creating games during my free time.
And I also might "vibe code" when I need to add another endpoint on a deadline to earn a living. To be fair - I review and test the code so not sure it's really vibe coding.
For me it's not that binary.
Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand
#575Earlier quoted context omitted.
But this is what I don't get. Writing code is not that hard . If the act of physically typing my code out is a bottleneck to my process, I am doing something wrong . Either I've under-abstracted, or over-abstracted, or flat out have the wrong abstractions. It's time to sit back and figure out why there's a mismatch with the problem domain and come back at it from another direction. To me this reads like people have l…
> Writing code is not that hard. It's not that hard, but it's not that easy. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. I'm a journalist who learned to code because it helped me do some stories that I wouldn't have done otherwise. But I don't like to type out the code. It's just no fun to me to deal with what seem to me arbitrary syntax choices made by someone decades ago, or to learn new jargon for each language/to…
I'm pretty damn sure the parent, by saying "writing code" meant the physical act of pushing down buttons to produce text, not the problem solving process that preceeds writing said code.
Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand
#576AI 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…
A use case I’ve been working through is learning a language (not programming). You can use LLMs to translate and write for you in another language but you will not be able to say, I know that language, no matter how much you use the LLM.
Now compare this to using the LLM with a grammar book and real world study mechanisms. This creates friction which actually causes your mind to learn. The LLM can serve as a tool to get specialized insight into the grammar book and accelerate physical processes (like generating all forms of a word for writing flashcards). At the end of day, you need to make an intelligent separation where the LLM ends and your learning begins.
I really like this contrast because it highlights the gap between using an LLM and actually learning. You may be able to use the LLM to pass college level courses in learning the language but unless you create friction, you actually won’t learn anything! There is definitely more nuance here but it’s food for thought
Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand
#577The funniest thing I've seen GPT do was a while back when I had it try to implement ORCA (Optimal Reciprocal Collision Avoidance). It is a human made algorithm for entities where they just use their own and N neighbours' current radii along with their velocity to calculate mathematical lines into the future, so that they can avoid walking into each other.
It came very close to success, but there were 2 or 3 big show-stopping bugs such as it forgetting to update the spatial partitioning when the entities moved, so it would work at the start but then degrade over time.
It believed and got stuck on thinking that it must be the algorithm itself that was the problem, so at some point it just stuck a generic boids solution into the middle of the rest. To make it worse, it didn't even bother to use the spatial partitioning and they were just brute force looking at their neighbours.
Had this been a real system it might have made its way into production, which makes one think about the value of the AI code out there. As it was I pointed out that bit and asked about it, at which point it admitted that it was definitely a mistake and then it removed it.
I had previously implement my own version of the algorithm and it took me quite a bit of time, but during that I built up the mental code model and understood both the problem and solution by the end. In comparison it easily implemented it 10-30x faster than I did but would never have managed to complete the project on its own. Also if I hadn't previously implemented it myself and had just tried to have it do the heavy lifting then I wouldn't have understood enough of what it was doing to overcome its issues and get the code working properly.
Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand
#578Earlier quoted context omitted.
My personal suspicion is that the detractors value process and implementation details much more highly than results. That would not surprise me if you come from a business that is paid for its labor inputs and is focused on keeping a large team billable for as long as possible. But I think hackers and garage coders see the value of “vibing” as they are more likely to be the type of people who just want results and vi…
My 2c: there is a divide, unacknowledged, between developers that care about "code correctness" (or any other quality/science/whatever adjective you like) and those who care about the whole system they are creating. I care about making stuff. "Making stuff" means stuff that I can use. I care about code quality yes, but not to an obsessive degree of "I hate my framework's ORM because of ". So, vibe coding is great, be…
My other 2c: There are Engineers who are concerned by the long-term consequences of their work e.g. maintainability.
In real engineering disciplines, the Engineer is accountable for their work. If a bridge you signed off collapses, you're accountable and if it turns out you were negligent you'll face jail time. In Software, that might be a program in a car.
The Engineering mindset embodies these principles regardless of regulatory constraints. The Engineer needs to keep in mind those who'll be using their constructions. With Agentic Vibecoding, I can never get confident that the resulting software will behave according to specs. I'm worried that it'll scewover the user, the client, and all stakeholders. I can't accept half-assed work just because it saved me 2 days of typing.
I don't make stuff just for the sake of making stuff otherwise it would just be a hobby, and in my hobbies I don't need to care about anything, but I can't in good conscience push shit and slop down other people's throats.
Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand
#579Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it’s usage patterns. It is you in a sense. You can’t deny the fact that someone like Ryan dhal creator of nodejs declared that he no longer writes code is objectively contrary to your own experience. Something is different. I think you and other deniers try one prompt and then they see the issues and stop. Programming with AI is like tutoring a child. You teach the child, tell it where it made mistakes and yo…
My personal suspicion is that the detractors value process and implementation details much more highly than results. That would not surprise me if you come from a business that is paid for its labor inputs and is focused on keeping a large team billable for as long as possible. But I think hackers and garage coders see the value of “vibing” as they are more likely to be the type of people who just want results and vi…
In real Engineering disciplines the process is important, and is critical for achieving desired results, that's why there are manuals and guidelines measured in the hundreds of pages for things like driving a pile into dirt. There are rigorous testing procedures to enusre everything is correct and up to spec, because there are real consequences.
Software Developers have long been completely disconnected from the consequences of their work, and tech companies have diluted responsibility so much that working software doesn't matter anymore. This field is now mostly scams and bullshit, where developers are closer to finance bros than real, actual Engineers.
I'm not talking about what someone os building in their home for personal reasons for their own usage, but about giving the same thing to other people.
In the end it's just cost cutting.
Re: After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand
#580Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Programming with AI is like tutoring a child. You teach the child, tell it where it made mistakes and you keep iterating and monitoring the child until it makes what you want. Who are you people who spend so much time writing code that this is a significant productivity boost? I'm imagining doing this with an actual child and how long it would take for me to get a real return on investment at my job. Nevermind that…
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…
... Yeah thise tests are probably garbage. The models probably covered the 80% that consists of boiler plate and mocked out the important 20% that was critical business logic. That's how it was in my experience.
For God's sake that's completely slop.