4 ms·

I thought this was going to be an article about intelligent use of LLM tools without vibecoding, but it's actually entirely against LLMs altogether. The person

I thought this was going to be an article about intelligent use of LLM tools without vibecoding, but it's actually entirely against LLMs altogether. The person who wrote it used a free trial of some tool (most likely not a frontier model) and then gave up forever when the trial ran out. > I then tried using one of the AI tools to analyze my code in a project and a few other small tasks before it all came to an awkward halt. The system informed me that I had just run out of credits and I would need to provide a credit card to purchase more tokens I wanted to keep going. > So you must believe me that the idea of paying a service in perpetuity so I could think just seemed so laughably absurd and horrific that I didn’t even bother giving them my card. I closed the laptop. I uninstalled the IDE and went back to using Emacs even. I wholly support their personal choice. I am tired of articles from people who haven't used LLMs preaching about how it's all vibecoding, though. Acting like LLM use is (EDIT: I meant is not) a spectrum between doing everything manually or handing control over to the LLM and vibecoding everything is a tired strawman argument.

iLoveOncall 6mo ago
Imagine being disappointed that an article is NOT clickbait :|
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
tensor 6mo ago
I still use LLMs in a "no-vibe coding" way. Essentially I use a combination of the typical auto-complete and asking it to generate tests or individual structs/classes that I then heavily modify. But no line of code goes unread and unvetted by me.
- wieie 6mo ago
  This is healthy but what about the economics - what about when the prices rise? At what point do you become more thoughtful about spend?
  - satvikpendem 6mo ago
    Open weight models are getting good.
wvenable 6mo ago
I'm using Github copilot and I ran out of requests before the end of the month; this happens from time to time. But last month was the first time I decided to try the cheap models that were still accessible to me just to see what they were capable of. They're dumb as rocks. I just don't know how many people have an overly negative opinion on AI assisted coding because they've just used the poor versions of these products given out for cheap/free. A similar critique is basing one's opinion on AI based on summary that Google provides for free in their search.
- ge96 6mo ago
  Get your company to pay for it (points to head)
  - wvenable 6mo ago
    Oh they do. And I could get them to pay even more but with the changes to copilot licensing, I'm not sure we will continue with it.
    - ge96 6mo ago
      Is claude code any better for the value
      - satvikpendem 6mo ago
        Codex is the best value for money now in my usage.
- Aurornis 6mo ago
  This article comes from a niche of people who read a lot of news articles about LLMs (links scattered throughout) but have also avoided learning about the tools directly. Like you said, the models available on free trials are usually toys compared to what developers use. Even Opus and GPT-5.5 are available on $20/month plans and you can buy a single month to try it out. The way they write about paying for a tool seeming "absurd and horrific" says it all about the level of actual research that went into their understanding. It's entirely based on news headlines.
m0llusk 6mo ago
LLM usage has costs that are open ended and rising. The author describe how he relates to that as a relentless cheapskate. This isn't supposed to be a directly applicable lesson to most, just a point of reference for further consideration. How much higher will costs go? How realistic will simple finishing off an odd idea be if the tools are charging professional rates? Much of the logic now seems to be can therefore do without much reference to costs or risks.
eikenberry 6mo ago
> Acting like LLM use is a spectrum between doing everything manually or handing control over to the LLM and vibecoding everything is a tired strawman argument. But isn't the strawman here was that it wasn't a spectrum. That they couldn't just use it some, but all or nothing.
- idle_zealot 6mo ago
  I think they meant "binary" rather than "spectrum".
leptons 6mo ago
I'm doing agentic coding with Claude Max, and it's like giving methamphetamine to a software developer. When I run out of tokens, I pay for extra. It doesn't feel good, but I do it because I didn't write the codebase - the drug dealer did. Just one more "fix" and the code should be good to ship. Oh no, out of tokens again? Just one more "fix", and another. And the code that the AI writes is sprawling and almost incomprehensibly complicated. Overly complicated. It's like a tweaker wrote it, on methamphetamine. I can make this comparison because many years ago I once had an ex that put methamphetamine (I didn't realize they had an addiction) in one of my vitamin capsules "as a joke", and I was up for 36 hours straight writing convoluted code, and then writing voluminous notes about the code I had yet to write. I had never done that drug before, or since (why they are an ex). I don't even drink. After that episode I re-read what I had written and it was quite scattershot. And now I get the same exact feeling when using AI to write code, or have it write tickets, or plan out something, etc. I use these tools daily, and it's like putting a drug dealer between me and the code. Sure it writes a lot more code than I could write without it, but at what cost? I really don't like where this is headed. And I don't think most software developers using AI realize what is happening.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- threethirtytwo 6mo ago
  The future is local LLMs. So still methamphetamines but open source, free and an unlimited supply.
  - leptons 6mo ago
    That won't really change anything, and in fact make the problem worse. It would be like "getting high on your own supply". Or just making meth at home so you can do it all the time. There's still a "drug dealer" in between you and the code. And you're going to have to pay $$$$ for hardware good enough to not slow you down. I've tried local models on an nVidia 4060 and it's pretty slow.
    - 6mo ago
sergeym 6mo ago
Regardless of the minimal time with LLMs, I think he hit major points on importance of clarity of abstractions, unreliability, shipping more features and working harder than even and losing touch with the underlying implementation.
- Aurornis 6mo ago
  If you are vibecoding an app without talking to anyone, those are problems. This is still missing the point that LLM use isn't a binary choice between YOLO vibecoding or complete abstinence from LLM use.
- LuminaNAO 6mo ago
  Yeah there has to be a middle ground. Agentic engineering you could say is that middle ground, you know your code base and inspect it often. Isn't vibe coding treating your code as a black box where your prompts are the only interface? Sometimes I vibe code if the task is simple, if I'm doing serious work then I'm inspecting the code often. I don't think I will ever do "pure" coding ever again unless I'm in an env that is too secure to trust an agent to exist there.
basch 6mo ago
People have a very strong tendency to go "current gen technology cant achieve x, therefore its impossible for this class of technology to ever achieve x" Many many many of the problems with current gen ai will go away.
- jaredcwhite 6mo ago
  Ah, the classic "But just you wait, the next version will be better!" fallacy. It's a fallacy because the reality is often not that…in fact sometimes the reality ends up worse. (See "enshittification", a process whereby technology gets worse over time, not better.)
  - basch 6mo ago
    The next version from that vendor. Or maybe the market commoditization. You’re again conflating the product offerings from the capacity of the technology. It’s like kinetic energy vs potential energy. The real wait is for the cost in disk space, memory and electricity of pretraining a transformer to be something the equivalent of a raspberry pi can accomplish. Then all the style and design choices of the few current vendors goes away.
cookiengineer 6mo ago
Talking about LLM without harness/environment engineering is like talking about children on a playground without safety measurements. Managing agents is a lot like managing children. They will outsmart you 99% of the time. If your agentic environment isn't built for good sandboxing, you won't succeed. If you build an environment that can represent mutual cooperation (e.g. helping an agent by doing the tool calls yourself if it was stuck) then it's soooo much better than just trying to rephrase the ruleset of the engagement. Don't optimize for retries. Optimize for sandboxing and strong agent to agent communication that you can also observe, modify, and summarize.
pacomerh 6mo ago
I like that its not just a random hollow rant, it cites good personal reasons. I actually really enjoyed the post, including that Tetris study which is very interesting.

iLoveOncall 6mo ago

Imagine being disappointed that an article is NOT clickbait :|

deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]

tensor 6mo ago

I still use LLMs in a "no-vibe coding" way. Essentially I use a combination of the typical auto-complete and asking it to generate tests or individual structs/classes that I then heavily modify. But no line of code goes unread and unvetted by me.

wieie 6mo ago
This is healthy but what about the economics - what about when the prices rise? At what point do you become more thoughtful about spend?
- satvikpendem 6mo ago
  Open weight models are getting good.

wvenable 6mo ago

I'm using Github copilot and I ran out of requests before the end of the month; this happens from time to time. But last month was the first time I decided to try the cheap models that were still accessible to me just to see what they were capable of. They're dumb as rocks. I just don't know how many people have an overly negative opinion on AI assisted coding because they've just used the poor versions of these products given out for cheap/free. A similar critique is basing one's opinion on AI based on summary that Google provides for free in their search.

ge96 6mo ago
Get your company to pay for it (points to head)
- wvenable 6mo ago
  Oh they do. And I could get them to pay even more but with the changes to copilot licensing, I'm not sure we will continue with it.
  - ge96 6mo ago
    Is claude code any better for the value
    - satvikpendem 6mo ago
      Codex is the best value for money now in my usage.
Aurornis 6mo ago
This article comes from a niche of people who read a lot of news articles about LLMs (links scattered throughout) but have also avoided learning about the tools directly. Like you said, the models available on free trials are usually toys compared to what developers use. Even Opus and GPT-5.5 are available on $20/month plans and you can buy a single month to try it out. The way they write about paying for a tool seeming "absurd and horrific" says it all about the level of actual research that went into their understanding. It's entirely based on news headlines.

m0llusk 6mo ago

LLM usage has costs that are open ended and rising. The author describe how he relates to that as a relentless cheapskate. This isn't supposed to be a directly applicable lesson to most, just a point of reference for further consideration. How much higher will costs go? How realistic will simple finishing off an odd idea be if the tools are charging professional rates? Much of the logic now seems to be can therefore do without much reference to costs or risks.

eikenberry 6mo ago

> Acting like LLM use is a spectrum between doing everything manually or handing control over to the LLM and vibecoding everything is a tired strawman argument. But isn't the strawman here was that it wasn't a spectrum. That they couldn't just use it some, but all or nothing.

idle_zealot 6mo ago
I think they meant "binary" rather than "spectrum".

leptons 6mo ago

I'm doing agentic coding with Claude Max, and it's like giving methamphetamine to a software developer. When I run out of tokens, I pay for extra. It doesn't feel good, but I do it because I didn't write the codebase - the drug dealer did. Just one more "fix" and the code should be good to ship. Oh no, out of tokens again? Just one more "fix", and another. And the code that the AI writes is sprawling and almost incomprehensibly complicated. Overly complicated. It's like a tweaker wrote it, on methamphetamine. I can make this comparison because many years ago I once had an ex that put methamphetamine (I didn't realize they had an addiction) in one of my vitamin capsules "as a joke", and I was up for 36 hours straight writing convoluted code, and then writing voluminous notes about the code I had yet to write. I had never done that drug before, or since (why they are an ex). I don't even drink. After that episode I re-read what I had written and it was quite scattershot. And now I get the same exact feeling when using AI to write code, or have it write tickets, or plan out something, etc. I use these tools daily, and it's like putting a drug dealer between me and the code. Sure it writes a lot more code than I could write without it, but at what cost? I really don't like where this is headed. And I don't think most software developers using AI realize what is happening.

deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
threethirtytwo 6mo ago
The future is local LLMs. So still methamphetamines but open source, free and an unlimited supply.
- leptons 6mo ago
  That won't really change anything, and in fact make the problem worse. It would be like "getting high on your own supply". Or just making meth at home so you can do it all the time. There's still a "drug dealer" in between you and the code. And you're going to have to pay $$$$ for hardware good enough to not slow you down. I've tried local models on an nVidia 4060 and it's pretty slow.
  - 6mo ago

sergeym 6mo ago

Regardless of the minimal time with LLMs, I think he hit major points on importance of clarity of abstractions, unreliability, shipping more features and working harder than even and losing touch with the underlying implementation.

Aurornis 6mo ago
If you are vibecoding an app without talking to anyone, those are problems. This is still missing the point that LLM use isn't a binary choice between YOLO vibecoding or complete abstinence from LLM use.
LuminaNAO 6mo ago
Yeah there has to be a middle ground. Agentic engineering you could say is that middle ground, you know your code base and inspect it often. Isn't vibe coding treating your code as a black box where your prompts are the only interface? Sometimes I vibe code if the task is simple, if I'm doing serious work then I'm inspecting the code often. I don't think I will ever do "pure" coding ever again unless I'm in an env that is too secure to trust an agent to exist there.

basch 6mo ago

People have a very strong tendency to go "current gen technology cant achieve x, therefore its impossible for this class of technology to ever achieve x" Many many many of the problems with current gen ai will go away.

jaredcwhite 6mo ago
Ah, the classic "But just you wait, the next version will be better!" fallacy. It's a fallacy because the reality is often not that…in fact sometimes the reality ends up worse. (See "enshittification", a process whereby technology gets worse over time, not better.)
- basch 6mo ago
  The next version from that vendor. Or maybe the market commoditization. You’re again conflating the product offerings from the capacity of the technology. It’s like kinetic energy vs potential energy. The real wait is for the cost in disk space, memory and electricity of pretraining a transformer to be something the equivalent of a raspberry pi can accomplish. Then all the style and design choices of the few current vendors goes away.

cookiengineer 6mo ago

Talking about LLM without harness/environment engineering is like talking about children on a playground without safety measurements. Managing agents is a lot like managing children. They will outsmart you 99% of the time. If your agentic environment isn't built for good sandboxing, you won't succeed. If you build an environment that can represent mutual cooperation (e.g. helping an agent by doing the tool calls yourself if it was stuck) then it's soooo much better than just trying to rephrase the ruleset of the engagement. Don't optimize for retries. Optimize for sandboxing and strong agent to agent communication that you can also observe, modify, and summarize.

pacomerh 6mo ago

I like that its not just a random hollow rant, it cites good personal reasons. I actually really enjoyed the post, including that Tetris study which is very interesting.