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The prevailing counter narrative around vibe coding seems to be that "code output isn't the bottle neck, understanding the problem is". But shouldn't that make
by worldsayshi 1y ago
The prevailing counter narrative around vibe coding seems to be that "code output isn't the bottle neck, understanding the problem is". But shouldn't that make vibe coding a good tool for the tool belt? Use it to understand the outermost layer of the problem, then throw out the code and write a proper solution.
- thyristan 1y ago> [create prototype], then throw out the code and write a proper solution. Problem is, that in everyones' experience, this almost never happens. The prototype is declared "good enough, just needs a few small adjustments", rewrite is declared too expensive, too time-consuming. And crap goes to production.
- ceuk 1y agoWatching was supposed to be a prototype become the production code is one of the most constant themes of my 20 year career
- jmathai 1y agoSoftware takes longer to develop than other parts of the org want to wait. AI is emerging as a possible solution to this decades old problem.
- zppln 1y agoNo, the org will still have to wait for the requirements, which is what they were waiting for all along.
- thyristan 1y agoEverything takes longer than ppl want to wait. But when building a house, ppl are more patient and tolerant about the time taken, because they can physically see the progress, the effort, the sweat. Software is intangible and invisible except maybe for beta-testers and developer liaisons. And the visual parts, like the nonfunctional GUI or web UI, are often taken as "most of the work is done", because that is what people see and interact with.
- jmathai 1y agoIt's product management's job to bridge that gap. Break down and prioritize complex projects into smaller deliverables that keep the business folks happy. It's better than houses, IMO - no one moves into the bedroom once it's finished while waiting for the kitchen.
- dudefeliciano 1y agountil the whole company fails because lack of polishing and security in the software. Think tea app openly accessible databases...
- spogbiper 1y agois there any evidence the tea app failure was due to AI use?
- ozim 1y agoI don’t really see this as universal truth with corporate customers stalling process for up to 2 years or end users being reluctant to change. We were deploying new changes every 2 weeks and it was too fast. End users need training and communication, pushback was quite a thing. We also just pushed back aggressive timeline we had for migration to new tech. Much faster interface with shorter paths - but users went all pitchforks and torches just because it was new. But with AI fortunately we will get rid of those pesky users right?
- thyristan 1y agoDifferent situation. You already had a product that they were quite happy with, and that worked well for them. So they saw change as a problem, not a good thing. They weren't waiting for anything new, or anything to improve, they were happy on their couch and you made them move to redo the upholstery.
- ozim 1y agoThey were not happy otherwise we would not have new requirements. Well maybe they were happy but software needs to be updated to new business processes their company was rolling out. Managers wanted the changes ASAP - their employees not so much, but they had to learn that hard way. Not so fun part was that we got the blame. Just like I got down vote :), not my first rodeo.
- YeGoblynQueenne 1y agoOr as a new problem that it will persist for decades to come.
- sdeframond 1y ago> Problem is How much is it a problem, really ? I mean, what are the alternatives ?
- thyristan 1y agoThe alternative is obviously: Do it right on the first try. How much of a problem it is can be seen with tons of products that are crap on release and only slowly get patched to a half-working state when the complaints start pouring in. But of course, this is status quo in software, so the perception of this as a problem among software people isn't universal I guess.
- sdeframond 1y agoSure. How about the tons of products we don't even see? Those that tried to do it right on the first try, then never delivered anything because there were too slow and expensive. Or those that delivered something useless because they did not understand the users' need. If "complaints start pouring in", that means the product is used. This in turns can mean two things: 1/ the product is actually useful despite its flaws, or 2/ the users have no choice, which is sad.
- bonoboTP 1y agoExactly. There is a reason for the push. The natural default of many engineers is to "do things properly", which often boils down to trying to guess all kinds of possible future extensions (because we have to get the foundations and the architecture right), then everything becomes abstracted and there's this huge framework that is designed to deal with hypothetical future needs in an elegant and flexible way with best practices etc. etc. And as time passes the navel-gazing nature of the project grows, where you add so much abstraction that you need more stuff to manage the abstraction, generate templates that generate the config file to manage the compilation of the config file generator etc. Not saying this happens always, but that's what people want to avoid when they say they are okay with a quick hack if it works.
- thyristan 1y ago
- worldsayshi 1y agoYes, that's how it is. And that is a separate problem. And it also shifts the narrative a bit more towards 'the bottleneck is writing good code'.
- lwhi 1y agoThis is the absolute reality. I think we'll need to see some major f-ups before this current wave matures.
- camgunz 1y agoCoding is how I build a sufficiently deep understanding of the problem space--there's no separating coding and understanding for me. I acknowledge there's different ways of working (and I imagine this is one of the reasons a lot of people think they get a lot more value out of LLMs than I do), but like, having Cursor crank code out for me actually slows me down. I have to read all the stuff it does so I can coach it into doing better, and also use its work to build a good mental model of the problem, and all that takes longer than writing the code myself.
- thyristan 1y agoWell, actually there could be a separate step: understanding is done during and after gathering requirements, before and while writing specifications. Only then are specifications turned into code. But almost no-one really works like that, and those three separate steps are often done ad-hoc, by the same person, right when the fingers hit the keys.
- camgunz 1y agoI can use those processes to understand things at a high level, but when those processes become detailed enough to give me the same level of understanding as coding, they're functionally code. I used to work in aerospace, and this is the work systems engineers are doing, and their output is extremely detailed--practically to the level of code. There's downsides of course, but the division of labor is nice because they don't need to like, decide algorithms or factoring exactly, and I don't need to be like, "hmm this... might fail? should there be a retry? what about watchdog blah blah".
- naasking 1y ago> Well, actually there could be a separate step: understanding is done during and after gathering requirements, before and while writing specifications. Only then are specifications turned into code. The promise of coding AI is that it can maybe automate that last step so more intelligent humans can actually have time to focus on the more important first parts.
- Ma8ee 1y ago