5 ms·

> My experience hasn't been LLMs automate coding, just speeds it up. This is how basically everyone I know actually uses LLMs. The whole story about vibecodin

by Aurornis 10mo ago

> My experience hasn't been LLMs automate coding, just speeds it up. This is how basically everyone I know actually uses LLMs. The whole story about vibecoding and LLMs replacing engineers has become a huge distraction from the really useful discussions to be had. It’s almost impossible to discuss LLMs on HN because everyone is busy attacking the vibecoding strawman all the time.

kylecazar 10mo ago
Half strawman -- a mudman, perhaps. Because we're seeing proper experts with credentials jump on the 'shit, AI can do all of this for me' realization blog post train.
- eaurouge 10mo ago
  So another strawman?
- Chris2048 10mo ago
  Which experts?
  - nl 10mo ago
    Does Linus Torvalds count?
    - ruszki 10mo ago
      When has he stated that he uses AI like that? The last I heard about him a month ago, he specifically stated that he was not interested in AI to write code: https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-ai-tool-maintaining-linux-code/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-ai-tool-maintai...
      - Philpax 10mo ago
        3 days ago: https://github.com/torvalds/AudioNoise/blob/main/README.md https://github.com/torvalds/AudioNoise/blob/main/README.md > Also note that the python visualizer tool has been basically written by vibe-coding. I know more about analog filters -- and that's not saying much -- than I do about python. It started out as my typical "google and do the monkey-see-monkey-do" kind of programming, but then I cut out the middle-man -- me -- and just used Google Antigravity to do the audio sample visualizer.
        darkwater 10mo ago
        For me there are two things notesworthy in that repo: * the README was clearly not written by an LLM nor aided * he still uses GPLv2 (not 3) as the license for his works
  - kylecazar 10mo ago
    Well, I have a lot of respect for antirez (Redis), and at the time of my writing this comment he had a front page blog post in which we find: "Writing code is no longer needed for the most part." It was a great post and I don't disagree with him. But it's an example of why it isn't necessarily a strawman anymore, because it is being claimed/realized by more than just vibecoders and hobbyists.
  - quest88 10mo ago
    the author of this post and Steve yegge come to mind
miki123211 10mo ago
As a professional programmer, I think both are useful in different scenarios. You're maintaining a large, professional codebase? You definitely shouldn't be vibe coding. The fact that some people are is a genuine problem. You want a simple app that you and your friends will use for a few weeks and throw away? Sure, you can probably vibe code something in 2 hours instead of paying for a SaaS. Both have their place.
- iknowSFR 10mo ago
  I’m seeing vibe coding redefine what the product manager is doing. Specifically, adding solution execution to its existing strategy and decision making responsibilities. The PM puts solutions in front of a customer and sees what sticks, then hands over the concept to engineering to bake into the larger code base. The primary change here is no longer relying on interviews and research to make product decisions that engineering spends months building only to have flop when it hits market. The PM is being required to build and test dozens of solutions before anything makes its way to engineering resources. How engineering builds the overall solution is still under their control but the fit is validated before it hits their desk.
  - sanderjd 10mo ago
    Yes! I think the next step is to realize that this kind of product manager role is one that more "engineers" should be willing to take on themselves. It's pretty clear why user interviews and research and product requirement docs are not obviously within the wheelhouse of technical people, but building lots of prototypes and getting feedback is a much better fit!
- phn 10mo ago
  I think the problem starts with the name. I've been coding with LLMs for the past few months but most of it is far from "vibed", I am constantly reviewing the output and guiding it in the right direction, it's more like a turbo charged code editor than a "junior developer", imo.
falloutx 10mo ago
> The whole story about vibecoding and LLMs replacing engineers has become a huge distraction Because the first thing that comes from individual speed up is not engineers making more money but there being less engineers, How much less is the question? Would they be satisfied with 10%, 50% or may be 99%?
- spacebanana7 10mo ago
  Generally the demand for software engineers has increased as their productivity has increased, looking back over the past few decades. There seems to be effectively infinite demand for software from consumers and enterprises so the cheaper it gets the more they buy. If we doubled agricultural productivity globally we'd need to have fewer farmers because there's no way we can all eat twice as much food. But we can absolutely consume twice as much CSS, try to play call of duty on our smart fridge or use a new SaaS to pay our taxes.
  - Ragnarork 10mo ago
    This reasoning is flawed in my opinion, because at the end of the day, the software still has to be paid for (for the people that want/need to make a living out of it), and customers wallet are finite. Our attention is also a finite resource (24h a day max). We already see how this has been the cause for the enshittificaton of large swathes of software like social media where grabbing the attention for a few seconds more drives the main innovation...
    - jimbokun 10mo ago
      Most software is paid for by businesses, not consumers.
  - torben-friis 10mo ago
    the demand for software has increased. The demand for software engineers has increased proportionally, because we were the only source of software. This correlation might no longer hold. Depending on how the future shapes up, we may have gone from artisans to middlemen, at which point we're only in the business of added value and a lot of coding is over. Not the Google kind of coding, but the "I need a website for my restaur1ant" kind, or the "I need to agregate data from these excel files in a certain way" kind. Anything where you'd accept cheap and disposable. Perhaps even the traditional startup, if POCs are vibecoded and engineers are only introducer later. Those are huge businesses, even if they are not present in the HN bubble.
latexr 10mo ago
> It’s almost impossible to discuss LLMs on HN because everyone is busy attacking the vibecoding strawman all the time. What’s “the vibecoding strawman”? There are plenty of people on HN (and elsewhere) repeatedly saying they use LLMs by asking them to “produce full apps in hours instead of weeks” and confirming they don’t read the code. Just because everyone you personally know does it one way, it doesn’t mean everyone else does it like that.
- Chris2048 10mo ago
  I'd assume the straw-man isn't that vibe-coding (vbc) doesn't exist, but that all/most ai-dev is vbc, or that it's ok to derail any discussion on ai-assisted dev with complaints applicable only/mainly to vbc.
  - latexr 10mo ago
    Neither of those would be a strawman, though. One would be a faulty generalization and the other is airing a grievance (could maybe be a bad faith argument?). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization Though I get that these days people tend to use “strawman” for anything they see as a bad argument, so you could be right in your assessment. Would be nice to have clarification on what they mean.
    - Chris2048 10mo ago
      Hmm, if the purpose of either is so an "easier" target can be made, I think it could still qualify as a straw-man; I think an accusation of straw-manning is in part a accusation of another's intent (or bad faith - not engaging with the argument).
      - latexr 10mo ago
        > Hmm, if the purpose of either is so an "easier" target can be made, I think it could still qualify as a straw-man Good point. > I think an accusation of straw-manning is in part a accusation of another's intent (or bad faith - not engaging with the argument). There I partially disagree. Straw-manning is not engaging with the argument but it can be done accidentally. As in, one may genuinely misunderstand the nuance in an argument and respond to a straw man by mistake. Bad faith does require bad intent.
throwaway6734 10mo ago
I perform software engineering at a research oriented institution and there are some projects I can now prototype without writing a line of code. The productivity benefits are massive
- hnthrow0287345 10mo ago
  Prototypes are always meant to be thrown away though, someone's going to have to redo it to comply with coding standards, scaling requirements, and existing patterns in the code base. If the prototype can be just dropped in and clear a PR and comply with all the standards, you're just doing software engineering for less money!
  - quest88 10mo ago
    the reality is people will be shipping "prototype code" all the time, outpacing those that don't and winning.
tech_tuna 10mo ago
There's a crazy amount of hype, fear and blatant lies in the mix. And the pace is absolutely bonkers. The pace of announcements is even more bonkers. Maybe things will settle down to a new normal at some point. You might think that everyone has FOMO or is an anti-AI Luddite when of course there are a LOT of us somewhere in the middle, just trying to get our work done and trying to figure out what our careers will look like in 5-10 years. One big thing that no one seems to talk about - GenAI is unlocking many new (and oftentimes "small") business ideas that were not practical just a few years ago. I have witnessed this firsthand. . . however, it will also take away jobs. How many, who knows? tl;dr everyone is full of shit or selling something or terrified to the point where they can't think straight. And no one has a crystal ball.

kylecazar 10mo ago

Half strawman -- a mudman, perhaps. Because we're seeing proper experts with credentials jump on the 'shit, AI can do all of this for me' realization blog post train.

eaurouge 10mo ago
So another strawman?
Chris2048 10mo ago
Which experts?
- nl 10mo ago
  Does Linus Torvalds count?
  - ruszki 10mo ago
    When has he stated that he uses AI like that? The last I heard about him a month ago, he specifically stated that he was not interested in AI to write code: https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-ai-tool-maintaining-linux-code/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-ai-tool-maintai...
    - Philpax 10mo ago
      3 days ago: https://github.com/torvalds/AudioNoise/blob/main/README.md https://github.com/torvalds/AudioNoise/blob/main/README.md > Also note that the python visualizer tool has been basically written by vibe-coding. I know more about analog filters -- and that's not saying much -- than I do about python. It started out as my typical "google and do the monkey-see-monkey-do" kind of programming, but then I cut out the middle-man -- me -- and just used Google Antigravity to do the audio sample visualizer.
      - darkwater 10mo ago
        For me there are two things notesworthy in that repo: * the README was clearly not written by an LLM nor aided * he still uses GPLv2 (not 3) as the license for his works
- kylecazar 10mo ago
  Well, I have a lot of respect for antirez (Redis), and at the time of my writing this comment he had a front page blog post in which we find: "Writing code is no longer needed for the most part." It was a great post and I don't disagree with him. But it's an example of why it isn't necessarily a strawman anymore, because it is being claimed/realized by more than just vibecoders and hobbyists.
- quest88 10mo ago
  the author of this post and Steve yegge come to mind

miki123211 10mo ago

As a professional programmer, I think both are useful in different scenarios. You're maintaining a large, professional codebase? You definitely shouldn't be vibe coding. The fact that some people are is a genuine problem. You want a simple app that you and your friends will use for a few weeks and throw away? Sure, you can probably vibe code something in 2 hours instead of paying for a SaaS. Both have their place.

iknowSFR 10mo ago
I’m seeing vibe coding redefine what the product manager is doing. Specifically, adding solution execution to its existing strategy and decision making responsibilities. The PM puts solutions in front of a customer and sees what sticks, then hands over the concept to engineering to bake into the larger code base. The primary change here is no longer relying on interviews and research to make product decisions that engineering spends months building only to have flop when it hits market. The PM is being required to build and test dozens of solutions before anything makes its way to engineering resources. How engineering builds the overall solution is still under their control but the fit is validated before it hits their desk.
- sanderjd 10mo ago
  Yes! I think the next step is to realize that this kind of product manager role is one that more "engineers" should be willing to take on themselves. It's pretty clear why user interviews and research and product requirement docs are not obviously within the wheelhouse of technical people, but building lots of prototypes and getting feedback is a much better fit!
phn 10mo ago
I think the problem starts with the name. I've been coding with LLMs for the past few months but most of it is far from "vibed", I am constantly reviewing the output and guiding it in the right direction, it's more like a turbo charged code editor than a "junior developer", imo.

falloutx 10mo ago

> The whole story about vibecoding and LLMs replacing engineers has become a huge distraction Because the first thing that comes from individual speed up is not engineers making more money but there being less engineers, How much less is the question? Would they be satisfied with 10%, 50% or may be 99%?

spacebanana7 10mo ago
Generally the demand for software engineers has increased as their productivity has increased, looking back over the past few decades. There seems to be effectively infinite demand for software from consumers and enterprises so the cheaper it gets the more they buy. If we doubled agricultural productivity globally we'd need to have fewer farmers because there's no way we can all eat twice as much food. But we can absolutely consume twice as much CSS, try to play call of duty on our smart fridge or use a new SaaS to pay our taxes.
- Ragnarork 10mo ago
  This reasoning is flawed in my opinion, because at the end of the day, the software still has to be paid for (for the people that want/need to make a living out of it), and customers wallet are finite. Our attention is also a finite resource (24h a day max). We already see how this has been the cause for the enshittificaton of large swathes of software like social media where grabbing the attention for a few seconds more drives the main innovation...
  - jimbokun 10mo ago
    Most software is paid for by businesses, not consumers.
- torben-friis 10mo ago
  the demand for software has increased. The demand for software engineers has increased proportionally, because we were the only source of software. This correlation might no longer hold. Depending on how the future shapes up, we may have gone from artisans to middlemen, at which point we're only in the business of added value and a lot of coding is over. Not the Google kind of coding, but the "I need a website for my restaur1ant" kind, or the "I need to agregate data from these excel files in a certain way" kind. Anything where you'd accept cheap and disposable. Perhaps even the traditional startup, if POCs are vibecoded and engineers are only introducer later. Those are huge businesses, even if they are not present in the HN bubble.

latexr 10mo ago

> It’s almost impossible to discuss LLMs on HN because everyone is busy attacking the vibecoding strawman all the time. What’s “the vibecoding strawman”? There are plenty of people on HN (and elsewhere) repeatedly saying they use LLMs by asking them to “produce full apps in hours instead of weeks” and confirming they don’t read the code. Just because everyone you personally know does it one way, it doesn’t mean everyone else does it like that.

Chris2048 10mo ago
I'd assume the straw-man isn't that vibe-coding (vbc) doesn't exist, but that all/most ai-dev is vbc, or that it's ok to derail any discussion on ai-assisted dev with complaints applicable only/mainly to vbc.
- latexr 10mo ago
  Neither of those would be a strawman, though. One would be a faulty generalization and the other is airing a grievance (could maybe be a bad faith argument?). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization Though I get that these days people tend to use “strawman” for anything they see as a bad argument, so you could be right in your assessment. Would be nice to have clarification on what they mean.
  - Chris2048 10mo ago
    Hmm, if the purpose of either is so an "easier" target can be made, I think it could still qualify as a straw-man; I think an accusation of straw-manning is in part a accusation of another's intent (or bad faith - not engaging with the argument).
    - latexr 10mo ago
      > Hmm, if the purpose of either is so an "easier" target can be made, I think it could still qualify as a straw-man Good point. > I think an accusation of straw-manning is in part a accusation of another's intent (or bad faith - not engaging with the argument). There I partially disagree. Straw-manning is not engaging with the argument but it can be done accidentally. As in, one may genuinely misunderstand the nuance in an argument and respond to a straw man by mistake. Bad faith does require bad intent.

throwaway6734 10mo ago

I perform software engineering at a research oriented institution and there are some projects I can now prototype without writing a line of code. The productivity benefits are massive

hnthrow0287345 10mo ago
Prototypes are always meant to be thrown away though, someone's going to have to redo it to comply with coding standards, scaling requirements, and existing patterns in the code base. If the prototype can be just dropped in and clear a PR and comply with all the standards, you're just doing software engineering for less money!
- quest88 10mo ago
  the reality is people will be shipping "prototype code" all the time, outpacing those that don't and winning.

tech_tuna 10mo ago

There's a crazy amount of hype, fear and blatant lies in the mix. And the pace is absolutely bonkers. The pace of announcements is even more bonkers. Maybe things will settle down to a new normal at some point. You might think that everyone has FOMO or is an anti-AI Luddite when of course there are a LOT of us somewhere in the middle, just trying to get our work done and trying to figure out what our careers will look like in 5-10 years. One big thing that no one seems to talk about - GenAI is unlocking many new (and oftentimes "small") business ideas that were not practical just a few years ago. I have witnessed this firsthand. . . however, it will also take away jobs. How many, who knows? tl;dr everyone is full of shit or selling something or terrified to the point where they can't think straight. And no one has a crystal ball.