Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why I don’t vibe code

jacobharr.is

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 119 posts

Re: Why I don’t vibe code

#71

Post by Aurornis »

sergeym wrote: post #46
Aurornis wrote: post #3

I thought this was going to be an article about intelligent use of LLM tools without vibecoding, but it's actually entirely against LLMs altogether. The person who wrote it used a free trial of some tool (most likely not a frontier model) and then gave up forever when the trial ran out. > I then tried using one of the AI tools to analyze my code in a project and a few other small tasks before it all came to an awkwar…

Regardless of the minimal time with LLMs, I think he hit major points on importance of clarity of abstractions, unreliability, shipping more features and working harder than even and losing touch with the underlying implementation.

If you are vibecoding an app without talking to anyone, those are problems.

This is still missing the point that LLM use isn't a binary choice between YOLO vibecoding or complete abstinence from LLM use.

Re: Why I don’t vibe code

#72

Post by satvikpendem »

wvenable wrote: post #11
Aurornis wrote: post #3

I thought this was going to be an article about intelligent use of LLM tools without vibecoding, but it's actually entirely against LLMs altogether. The person who wrote it used a free trial of some tool (most likely not a frontier model) and then gave up forever when the trial ran out. > I then tried using one of the AI tools to analyze my code in a project and a few other small tasks before it all came to an awkwar…

I'm using Github copilot and I ran out of requests before the end of the month; this happens from time to time. But last month was the first time I decided to try the cheap models that were still accessible to me just to see what they were capable of. They're dumb as rocks. I just don't know how many people have an overly negative opinion on AI assisted coding because they've just used the poor versions of these prod…

Which models did you try? Open weight ones like Qwen and DeepSeek are getting pretty good, you just need the right harness, via OpenCode or Pi. I use Qwen 3.6 27B on my laptop with Unsloth Studio (Unsloth releases a lot of good quantizations and has great support for the latest features, recently released MTP support which can 2x token generation speed with no loss of accuracy).

Re: Why I don’t vibe code

#73

Post by satvikpendem »

wieie wrote: post #52
tensor wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still use LLMs in a "no-vibe coding" way. Essentially I use a combination of the typical auto-complete and asking it to generate tests or individual structs/classes that I then heavily modify. But no line of code goes unread and unvetted by me.

This is healthy but what about the economics - what about when the prices rise? At what point do you become more thoughtful about spend?

Open weight models are getting good.

Re: Why I don’t vibe code

#74

Post by satvikpendem »

dpatterbee wrote: post #31
extr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're welcome to feel that way but it's a luxury belief. In reality, outside of a few (one?) major city in the US with public transportation infrastructure, you need a car. 92% of people own a car, higher if you exclude the dense urban areas I'm talking about.

People only need cars because people have cars and cars make cities worse for everyone outside of one. If nobody owned cars everyone would get by just fine. It's a race to the bottom.

Sure, but that doesn't change the fact that today people need cars. In an ideal world I'd also love a European or Asian city model but American cities are not like that.

Re: Why I don’t vibe code

#75

Post by extr »

Aurornis wrote: post #41
extr wrote: post #16

This is like reading an article "I Don't Drive Cars" that goes on like - They're too expensive - My buddy's 1995 Accord breaks down a lot - Walking is healthier, plus you can stop and smell the roses - I enjoy caring for my horse - Sometimes you can get stuck in traffic Fine if that's the way you want and can afford to live your life. But it is an exotic luxury belief. For those of us who are participating in the eco…

You're going to get picked apart by people who live within walking distance or public transport distance of their office and don't understand why everyone else uses cars. If you can walk to your office and the temperature is always between 50 and 70 degrees F you would probably think cars are crazy, too. Which, funnily enough, proves the point even further. Some people get so comfortable in their bubble that they bec…

You are picking at the analogy rather than engaging with the point. In the US, excluding areas with substantial public transportation infrastructure (realistically just a few major cities), car ownership is nearly universal. You can choose to not own a car as a lifestyle choice but you will be making concessions in other areas (the types of jobs and homes you have access to), similar to how refusal to use AI in software engineering at this point will substantially limit your options and ability to participate in the sector.

Re: Why I don’t vibe code

#76

Post by tasuki »

Aurornis wrote: post #70
tasuki wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a weird analogy. I almost always walk to the office. The temperature range is a lot bigger (freezing in winter to uncomfortably hot in summer), and it's like 3 km, which many people wouldn't dream of walking. When my work was farther I used to cycle. Most people can easily get to work without a car. Just depends on goals and motivations. Car is definitely the laziest way.

> Most people can easily get to work without a car. This is statistically very false. It does a good job of proving my point that people within this bubble have a hard time understanding what the rest of the world is like.

You're the one in a bubble.

[Edit:] That wasn't very helpful of me, let me expand: I live in a city of 400,000 people. It can be crossed on foot in an hour, faster by bicycle. For people who can't or don't want to, the public transport is good. And yet there are traffic jams everywhere.

I used to live in Amsterdam, which is a bigger place. I cycled around 13 km each way, which isn't entirely unusual.

I stand by my point that most people can easily get to work without a car. Most are just too lazy to walk/cycle/use public transport. If you have any data showing otherwise, I'd be delighted to see!

Re: Why I don’t vibe code

#77

Post by extr »

nix0n wrote: post #53
extr wrote: post #16

This is like reading an article "I Don't Drive Cars" that goes on like - They're too expensive - My buddy's 1995 Accord breaks down a lot - Walking is healthier, plus you can stop and smell the roses - I enjoy caring for my horse - Sometimes you can get stuck in traffic Fine if that's the way you want and can afford to live your life. But it is an exotic luxury belief. For those of us who are participating in the eco…

There are many trainfuls of people who still write code using traditional syntax-based IDE completion.

If they want to continue that practice that's fine but they will quickly find that it severely limits their options for participating in the software industry.

Re: Why I don’t vibe code

#79

Post by kaffekaka »

aogaili wrote: post #64
suddenlybananas wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some developers solve hard problems and some don't. It depends entirely on your specific work.

Indeed. But my argument is that a lot of those hard problems were, in fact, already solved; some people made a career out of solving the same problems over and over again. The fact that we have a tool to automate the lower tier of problem-solving doesn't mean we are no longer solving problems—it just means we are being asked to solve higher-order problems.

But it also means we solve the same problems as before but faster, meaning less time is given to planning and thinking about what to actually build. This is a real problem where I work. Everyones grasp of what we are building and how it is connected is markedly worse nowadays.

We as a collective must learn the skill to put these new abilities to good use instead of just aiming to accelerate as much as possible.

Re: Why I don’t vibe code

#80

Post by extr »

threetonesun wrote: post #27
extr wrote: post #16

This is like reading an article "I Don't Drive Cars" that goes on like - They're too expensive - My buddy's 1995 Accord breaks down a lot - Walking is healthier, plus you can stop and smell the roses - I enjoy caring for my horse - Sometimes you can get stuck in traffic Fine if that's the way you want and can afford to live your life. But it is an exotic luxury belief. For those of us who are participating in the eco…

Yes everyone that lives in a major city that doesn't use a car is... not participating in the real economy.

If you do not live in one of the handful of areas in the US with public transportation infrastructure and also do not own a car you are an extreme outlier. Likewise, if you do not use AI tools to code, outside of some highly niche and specialized areas where perhaps they are still not effective, you are also an extreme outlier and are going to making significant tradeoffs to continue that practice.
Post reply on HN