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Vibe Coding and the Future of Software Engineering

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Re: Vibe Coding and the Future of Software Engineering

#71

Post by mohsen1 »

makeitdouble wrote: post #38
mohsen1 wrote: post #33

It's interesting to see a lot of senior folks are against this arguing that if you're working on a larger software project this falls apart. Two things can be argued against this: 1. Context sizes are going to grow. Gemini with 2M tokens is already doing amazing feats 2. We all agree that we should break bigger problems into smaller ones. So if you can isolate the problem into something that fits in a LLM context, no…

Compartmentizing the code only matters if it works in the first place. The main argument from senior folks is probably that vibe codes won't cut it for actual sizeable problem. There is complexity that can't be abstracted away just because we want to.

I think we're overestimating how much humans can keep in context. Throughout my career I've seen many instances that folks completely get it wrong and miss the context.

Re: Vibe Coding and the Future of Software Engineering

#72

Post by mohsen1 »

chis wrote: post #42
mohsen1 wrote: post #33

It's interesting to see a lot of senior folks are against this arguing that if you're working on a larger software project this falls apart. Two things can be argued against this: 1. Context sizes are going to grow. Gemini with 2M tokens is already doing amazing feats 2. We all agree that we should break bigger problems into smaller ones. So if you can isolate the problem into something that fits in a LLM context, no…

I honestly think it comes down to preferred work style in some cases. Once a codebase gets decently complex, it’s true that you have to supervise the AI extremely closely to get a good result. But at least for me I tend to enjoy doing that more than writing it myself. I’m a fast typer of prose, I like to plan my coding ahead of time anyways, so whether the AI does it or me is kinda immaterial

same! and let's be honest, some times AI comes up with ideas that makes us say "woah"

Re: Vibe Coding and the Future of Software Engineering

#73

Post by gngoo »

digdugdirk wrote: post #64
gngoo wrote: post #62

For me, vibe coding is the only logical way forward. I see that the term gets a lot of flak. But in almost 10 years of writing web-applications for a living, this feels even more exciting then when I finally "got it". And its measurable, I am sitting on 5 completed web-apps with traffic just this year, working with 3 clients, and due to my ability to be this productive, feel like I have a very stable future ahead. I…

... The current global system just isn't going to make it, is it?

I am not the judge of that, but I always felt like I freelanced/contracted out in the fringes. So I am definitely not the average of the industry here.

Re: Vibe Coding and the Future of Software Engineering

#74

Post by xg15 »

xg15 wrote: post #36
voidhorse wrote: post #35

Honestly, the fact that this is even a concept assessed with any seriousness shows me how much bullshit the label "engineering" is when applied to software. You want to have an LLM help you crap out a script, sure, but you mean to tell me you'd seriously consider using an LLM for a production systems that affects real people that deals with real people's real data and call yourself a software "engineer"? Engineering…

I mean, with the way things are going currently, I wouldn't be surprised if the "vibe-based engineering" paradigm gets applied to real-world engendering too. The bridge collapsed? Oops, software error, can't do anything about it!

(autocorrect was vibes-based already: real-world engineering, not engendering)

Re: Vibe Coding and the Future of Software Engineering

#75

Post by risyachka »

d_burfoot wrote: post #49
risyachka wrote: post #14

>> Seems like programmers are terrified Idk why terrified, vibe coding is nice but everyone who developed something bigger than a toy knows that code is 5% of the task and never was a bottleneck. Its not like faang employees write code all day long, or even half day. Ah and you need to make sure it doesn’t nuke your db or send weird email to your users because someone prompt-engineered it badly.

> why terrified I'm terrified some colleague is going to vibe-code a product and use it to get promoted, then move to another team and dump the project on me to maintain.

You can either vibe-code or have sharp skills. Can’t have both.

In that particular situation you will have easier time switching a job(that usually pays more than promotion) than your colleague.

Re: Vibe Coding and the Future of Software Engineering

#76

Post by antirez »

jcgrillo wrote: post #52
antirez wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a youtube channel with a playlist of coding with AI, where I show what I do with it (a small part, actually, but representative enough I hope). This is is the first video of the series I believe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pLlet9Jrzc&list=PLrEMgOSrS_... And here, Redis bugfixing with Claude Sonnet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCIZflYEpEk&list=PLrEMgOSrS_...

I don't get it. Watched the first video, and it seems like the LLMs provided no value at all? Like, you already knew where the bug was, and what the bug was, and they couldn't find it? So 20+min of messing around with prompts and reading through pages of output.. for nothing? How is this supposed to help?

In the video I show what happened AFTER the LLM fixed the bug while I was not recording. Of course I had no idea where the bug was, when the LLM found it. After a refactoring I removed a line for a mistake, causing a memory corruption. The LLM seeing the code and the patch immediately pointed out what the issue was.

Re: Vibe Coding and the Future of Software Engineering

#77

Post by namaria »

gngoo wrote: post #62

For me, vibe coding is the only logical way forward. I see that the term gets a lot of flak. But in almost 10 years of writing web-applications for a living, this feels even more exciting then when I finally "got it". And its measurable, I am sitting on 5 completed web-apps with traffic just this year, working with 3 clients, and due to my ability to be this productive, feel like I have a very stable future ahead. I…

> Well, its sad, but I am likely replacing 3 people on their team.

Are you capturing this value? Are you getting paid 4x as much as before? If you are not capturing this increase in the value of your work, who is? If you're not getting paid 4x as much as before, which I doubt you are, why are you doing this?

Re: Vibe Coding and the Future of Software Engineering

#78

Post by gngoo »

namaria wrote: post #77
gngoo wrote: post #62

For me, vibe coding is the only logical way forward. I see that the term gets a lot of flak. But in almost 10 years of writing web-applications for a living, this feels even more exciting then when I finally "got it". And its measurable, I am sitting on 5 completed web-apps with traffic just this year, working with 3 clients, and due to my ability to be this productive, feel like I have a very stable future ahead. I…

> Well, its sad, but I am likely replacing 3 people on their team. Are you capturing this value? Are you getting paid 4x as much as before? If you are not capturing this increase in the value of your work, who is? If you're not getting paid 4x as much as before, which I doubt you are, why are you doing this?

I am getting paid significantly more than a year ago, but definitely not 4x as much. However, I have a lot more free time than I did before. And this while working on my own side projects as well; which are slowly growing into ramen-profitability. There are also other things to factor in, like living in South East Asia at a low cost of living and billing US and EU standard rates.

> why are you doing this?

Because I love doing this? Both web and software development are passions, AI feels like a lever; and making my money with this is nothing short of a dream come true.

Re: Vibe Coding and the Future of Software Engineering

#79

Post by [deleted] »

antirez wrote: post #2

As I said in one of my latest YT videos: if you can't code , sure, go all for it, the difference with x -> 0 in the denominator tends to infinity. But if you can code, there are much better ways to use generative AI to aid you in your coding tasks. Ways that will make you faster while you learn more, understand every single line of the code that is in your application, never letting badly written code go into your co…

[deleted]

Re: Vibe Coding and the Future of Software Engineering

#80

Post by sergiotapia »

batshit_beaver wrote: post #45
sergiotapia wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One example: I had to send a report to a slack webhook, showing how many oban jobs were completed in the last 24 hours for specific uses cases based on oban job params. That's: sql query, slack webhook api docs reading, ecto query for oban jobs with complex para filtering, oban job to run cron, cron syntax. easily like a 2 hour job? it took me 5 minutes with AI. then we decided to send the slack alert at 7am EST inst…

> i believe syntax memorization is dead. Hold up, if you don't know a language's syntax, how can you verify that the answer returned by LLM is correct (at a glance, because a) nobody writes exhaustive tests, LLMs included, and b) you wouldn't be able to read the tests to confirm their validity either)? I struggle to think of a case where explaining a task to an LLM in a natural language is somehow faster than writing…

I already gave you literally a specific task I completed in minutes vs 2 hours, how are you struggling with that?
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