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I've been playing around with "vibe coding" recently. Generally react front end and Rust back end. Rust has the nice benefit that you only really get logic bugs
by leoedin 9mo ago
I've been playing around with "vibe coding" recently. Generally react front end and Rust back end. Rust has the nice benefit that you only really get logic bugs if it compiles.
In the few apps I've built, progress is initially amazing. And then you get to a certain point and things slow down. I've built a list of things that are "not quite right" and then, as I work through each one all the strange architectural decisions the AI initially made start to become obvious.
Much like any software development, you have to stop adding features and start refactoring. That's the point at which not being a good software developer will really start to bite you, because it's only experience that will point you in the right direction.
It's completely incredible what the models can do. Both in speed of building (especially credible front ends), and as sounding boards for architecture. It's definitely a productivity boost. But I think we're still a long way off non-technical people being able to develop applications.
A while ago I worked on a non-trivial no-code application. I realised then that even though there's "no code", you still needed to apply careful thought about data structures and UI and all the other things that make an application great. Otherwise it turned into a huge mess. This feels similar.
- throwaway0123_5 9mo ago> But I think we're still a long way off non-technical people being able to develop applications. I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone do a case study, having truly non-technical people build apps with these tools. Take a few moderately tech-savvy (can use MS office up to doing basic stuff in excel, understands a filesystem) people who work white collar jobs. Give them a one or two-day crash course on how Claude Code works. See what is the most complicated app which they can develop that is reasonably stable and secure.
- CuriouslyC 9mo agoThis is a big part of why vibe coded projects fall over. AI creates big balls of mud because it's myopic as hell. Linters help but they're still pretty limited. I've had good success using https://github.com/sibyllinesoft/valknut https://github.com/sibyllinesoft/valknut to automate the majority of my refactoring work. I still do a style/naming pass on things, but it handles most issues that can be analytically measured.