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These posts are funny to me because prompt engineers point at them as evidence of the fast-approaching software engineer obsolescence but the years of experienc

These posts are funny to me because prompt engineers point at them as evidence of the fast-approaching software engineer obsolescence but the years of experience in software engineering necessary to even guide an AI in this way is very high. The reason he keeps adjusting the prompts is because he knows how to program. He knows what it should look like. It just blurs the line between engineer and tool.

tptacek 1y ago
I don't know why that's funny. This is not a post about a vibe coding session. It's Kenton Varda['s coding session]. later updated to clarify kentonv didn't write this article
- kevingadd 1y ago
  I think it makes sense that GP is skeptical of this article considering it contains things like: > this tool is improving itself, learning from every interaction which seem to indicate a fundamental misunderstanding of how modern LLMs work: the 'improving' happens by humans training/refining existing models offline to create new models, and the 'learning' is just filling the context window with more stuff, not enhancement of the actual model or the model 'learning' - it will forget everything if you drop the context and as the context grows it can 'forget' things it previously 'learned'.
  - BurritoKing 1y ago
    When you consider the "tool" as more than just the LLM model, but the stuff wrapped around calling that model then I feel like you can make a good argument it's improving when it keeps context in a file on disk and constantly updates and edits that file as you work throguh the project. I do this routinely for large initiatives I'm kicking off through Claude Code - it writes a long detailed plan into a file and as we work through the project I have it constantly updating and rewriting that document to add information we have jointly discovered from each bit of the work. That means every time I come back and fire it back up, it's got more information than when it started, which looks a lot more improvement from my perspective.
    - tptacek 1y ago
      I would love to hear more about this workflow.
- kiitos 1y ago
  The sequence of commits talked about by the OP -- i.e. kenton's coding session's commits -- are like one degree removed from 100% pure vibe coding.
  - tptacek 1y ago
    Your claim here being that Kenton Varda isn't reading the code he's generating. Got it. Good note.
    - kiitos 1y ago
      No, that's not at all my claim, as it's obvious from the commit history that Kenton is reading the code he's generating before committing it.
      - kentonv 1y ago
        What do you mean by "one degree removed from 100% pure vibe coding", then? The definition of vibe coding is letting the AI code without review...
        kiitos 1y ago
        > one degree removed You're letting Claude do your programming for you, and then sweeping up whatever it does afterwards. Bluntly, you're off-loading your cognition to the machine. If that's fine by you then that's fine enough, it just means that the quality of your work becomes a function of your tooling rather than your capabilities.
        kentonv 1y ago
        I don't agree. The AI largely does the boring and obvious parts. I'm still deciding what gets built and how it is designed, which is the interesting part.
        tptacek 1y ago
spaceman_2020 1y ago
The argument is that this stuff will so radically improve senior engineer productivity that the demand for junior engineers will crater. And without a pipeline of junior engineers, the junior-to-senior trajectory will radically atrophy Essentially, the field will get frozen where existing senior engineers will be able to utilize AI to outship traditional senior-junior teams, even as junior engineers fail to secure employment I don’t think anything in this article counters this argument
- tptacek 1y ago
  I don't know why people don't give more credence to the argument that the exact opposite thing will happen.
  - dcre 1y ago
    Right. I don’t understand why everyone thinks this will make it impossible for junior devs to learn. The people I had around to answer my questions when I was learning knew a whole lot less than Claude and also had full time jobs doing something other than answering my questions.
    - fch42 1y ago
      It won't make it impossible for junior engineers to learn. It will simply reduce the amount of opportunities to learn (and not just for juniors), by virtue of companies' beancounters concluding "two for one" (several juniors) doesn't return the same as "buy one get one free" (existing staff + AI license). I dread the day we all "learn from AI". The social interaction part of learning is just as important as the content of it, really, especially when you're young; none of that comes across yet in the pure "1:1 interaction" with AI.
      - auggierose 1y ago
        I learnt programming on my own, without any social interaction involved. In fact, I loved programming because it does not involve any social interaction. Programming has become more of a "social game" in the last 15 years or so. AI is a new superpower for people like me, bringing balance to the Force.
latexr 1y ago
> It just blurs the line between engineer and tool. I realise you meant it as “the engineer and their tool blend together”, but I read it like a funny insult: “that guy likes to think of himself as an engineer, but he’s a complete tool”.
visarga 1y ago
> prompt engineers point at them as evidence of the fast-approaching software engineer obsolescence Maybe journalists and bloggers angling for attention do it, prompt engineers are too aware of the limitations of prompting to do that.
thegrim33 1y ago
I mean yeah, the very first prompt given to the AI was put together by an experienced developer; a bunch of code telling the AI exactly what the API should look like and how it would be used. The very first step in the process already required an experienced developer to be involved.

tptacek 1y ago

I don't know why that's funny. This is not a post about a vibe coding session. It's Kenton Varda['s coding session]. later updated to clarify kentonv didn't write this article

kevingadd 1y ago
I think it makes sense that GP is skeptical of this article considering it contains things like: > this tool is improving itself, learning from every interaction which seem to indicate a fundamental misunderstanding of how modern LLMs work: the 'improving' happens by humans training/refining existing models offline to create new models, and the 'learning' is just filling the context window with more stuff, not enhancement of the actual model or the model 'learning' - it will forget everything if you drop the context and as the context grows it can 'forget' things it previously 'learned'.
- BurritoKing 1y ago
  When you consider the "tool" as more than just the LLM model, but the stuff wrapped around calling that model then I feel like you can make a good argument it's improving when it keeps context in a file on disk and constantly updates and edits that file as you work throguh the project. I do this routinely for large initiatives I'm kicking off through Claude Code - it writes a long detailed plan into a file and as we work through the project I have it constantly updating and rewriting that document to add information we have jointly discovered from each bit of the work. That means every time I come back and fire it back up, it's got more information than when it started, which looks a lot more improvement from my perspective.
  - tptacek 1y ago
    I would love to hear more about this workflow.
kiitos 1y ago
The sequence of commits talked about by the OP -- i.e. kenton's coding session's commits -- are like one degree removed from 100% pure vibe coding.
- tptacek 1y ago
  Your claim here being that Kenton Varda isn't reading the code he's generating. Got it. Good note.
  - kiitos 1y ago
    No, that's not at all my claim, as it's obvious from the commit history that Kenton is reading the code he's generating before committing it.
    - kentonv 1y ago
      What do you mean by "one degree removed from 100% pure vibe coding", then? The definition of vibe coding is letting the AI code without review...
      - kiitos 1y ago
        > one degree removed You're letting Claude do your programming for you, and then sweeping up whatever it does afterwards. Bluntly, you're off-loading your cognition to the machine. If that's fine by you then that's fine enough, it just means that the quality of your work becomes a function of your tooling rather than your capabilities.
        kentonv 1y ago
        I don't agree. The AI largely does the boring and obvious parts. I'm still deciding what gets built and how it is designed, which is the interesting part.
        tptacek 1y ago

spaceman_2020 1y ago

The argument is that this stuff will so radically improve senior engineer productivity that the demand for junior engineers will crater. And without a pipeline of junior engineers, the junior-to-senior trajectory will radically atrophy Essentially, the field will get frozen where existing senior engineers will be able to utilize AI to outship traditional senior-junior teams, even as junior engineers fail to secure employment I don’t think anything in this article counters this argument

tptacek 1y ago
I don't know why people don't give more credence to the argument that the exact opposite thing will happen.
- dcre 1y ago
  Right. I don’t understand why everyone thinks this will make it impossible for junior devs to learn. The people I had around to answer my questions when I was learning knew a whole lot less than Claude and also had full time jobs doing something other than answering my questions.
  - fch42 1y ago
    It won't make it impossible for junior engineers to learn. It will simply reduce the amount of opportunities to learn (and not just for juniors), by virtue of companies' beancounters concluding "two for one" (several juniors) doesn't return the same as "buy one get one free" (existing staff + AI license). I dread the day we all "learn from AI". The social interaction part of learning is just as important as the content of it, really, especially when you're young; none of that comes across yet in the pure "1:1 interaction" with AI.
    - auggierose 1y ago
      I learnt programming on my own, without any social interaction involved. In fact, I loved programming because it does not involve any social interaction. Programming has become more of a "social game" in the last 15 years or so. AI is a new superpower for people like me, bringing balance to the Force.

latexr 1y ago

> It just blurs the line between engineer and tool. I realise you meant it as “the engineer and their tool blend together”, but I read it like a funny insult: “that guy likes to think of himself as an engineer, but he’s a complete tool”.

visarga 1y ago

> prompt engineers point at them as evidence of the fast-approaching software engineer obsolescence Maybe journalists and bloggers angling for attention do it, prompt engineers are too aware of the limitations of prompting to do that.

thegrim33 1y ago

I mean yeah, the very first prompt given to the AI was put together by an experienced developer; a bunch of code telling the AI exactly what the API should look like and how it would be used. The very first step in the process already required an experienced developer to be involved.