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It's deeper. We used to mock architects that stepped back and stopped coding, because they generated trash. There's a cycle that is needed for good system desi
by ori_b 5mo ago
It's deeper. We used to mock architects that stepped back and stopped coding, because they generated trash.
There's a cycle that is needed for good system design. Start with a problem and an approach, and write some code. As you write the code, you reify the design and flesh out the edge cases, learning where you got the details wrong. As you learn the details, you go back to the drawing board and shuffle the puzzle pieces, and try again.
Polished, effective systems don't just fall out of an engineers head. They're learned as you shape them.
Good engineers won't continue to be good when vibe-coding, because the thing that made them good was the learning loop. They may be able to coast for a while, at best.
- beeandapenguin 5mo agoReminds me of Gall’s Law from his book Systemantics. A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gall_(author)#Gall's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gall_(author)#Gall's_law
- ori_b 5mo agoI find that the learning and iteration tends to lead to a simplified system, if you're willing to look hard enough at the shapes needed. When there's a lot of complexity, it's often repetitive translation layers, and not something fundamental to the problem being solved.
- sothatsit 5mo agoYou don’t need to write code by hand to learn from iterations and experiments. I run more experiments and try out more different solutions than I ever could before, and that leads to better decisions. I still read all the code that gets shipped, and don’t want to give that up, but the idea that all craft and learning is lost when you don’t is a bit silly. The craft/learning just moves.
- ori_b 5mo agoHow much calculus do you think you could pick up skimming a textbook without doing exercises? We mocked these "architects" from experience. We knew that if you weren't feeling the friction yourself, you wouldn't learn enough to do good design. Maybe you don't care about engineering great systems. Most companies don't. It's good for profit. This isn't new, though AI enables less care.
- sothatsit 5mo agoThe entire mistake you are making is comparing using AI to skimming textbooks, or taking shortcuts. Your entire premise is wrong. People who care about craft will care about the quality of what they produce whether they use AI or not. The code I ship now is better tested and better thought through now than before I used AI because I can do a lot more. That extra time goes into additional experiments, jumping down more rabbit holes, and trying out ideas I previously couldn’t due to time constraints. It’s freeing to be able to spend more time to improve quality because the ROI on time spent experimenting has gone up dramatically.
- ori_b 5mo agoYou can keep telling yourself that. I have seen the results from others making the same arguments. The result is invariably trash.