5 ms·

We desperately need some new terminology to describe using LLMs to support development work. "Vibe code" has a strict definition but no one really cares. I have

We desperately need some new terminology to describe using LLMs to support development work. "Vibe code" has a strict definition but no one really cares. I have a really hard time believing that the Rust port was 100% "vibed" the way the original definition was laid out. It's a big slushy of emotions that I understand (both positive and negative) but it makes it so hard to actually tells what problem someone actually has when they just use "vibe coding" as a general LLM usage slur. I'm using LLMs to assist my development and I'm measurably (in all the ways we engineers could possibly care about) doing better work faster.

b40d-48b2-979e 5mo ago
I'm using LLMs to assist my development and I'm measurably (in all the ways we engineers could possibly care about) doing better work faster. Studies suggest you aren't any faster and may in fact be slower. It's difficult to study such a new tech, but even optimistically, empirical evidence is only showing a ~3% gain in some domains. Writing code is rarely the limiting factor in our work.
- cdelsolar 5mo ago
  studies suggest nothing. i've released a massive number of features in the last year for several projects that i estimate would have taken me multiple years to put together in a much more mentally exhausting way.
  - b40d-48b2-979e 5mo ago
    Your drive-by comments are unwelcome. You can estimate all you want, but the data is collating, and it isn't within your worldview.
    - shard972 5mo ago
      [dead]
    - lanyard-textile 5mo ago
      It is healthy to question results: That's good science. This result wouldn't surprise me if the tooling was limited to, say, copilot :) It would surprise me if it included tooling like Claude Code. Which seems unlikely, given its recency.
    - cdelsolar 5mo ago
      I am not estimating anything. This is my own evidence from my own projects. I have deployed gigantic features this past year, each of which would have taken me the whole year to write.
- adamtaylor_13 5mo ago
  Those studies have well known flaws. I'm measuring my output so I happen to know I'm not only going faster, but the quality is better. I'm not vibe-measuring my output ;)
- Kiro 5mo ago
  There's no uncertainty here. Every day I ask myself how long something I did would have taken without it. The answer is always crystal clear. It's not hard or difficult at all.
- solidasparagus 5mo ago
  I think those studies have framing or methodological issue. I agree the maintenance burden is probably being undervalued by developers in general, but there's just no way the work I do isn't faster. I just categorically couldn't have achieved the outputs I do now in the time windows I have. The software just wouldn't have existed in the world of 3 years ago and I did enough coding back then to say that with certainty.
- tonyedgecombe 5mo ago
  Surely that argument is dead once someone has migrated a million lines of code in eight days.
  - gregoryl 5mo ago
    Surely that reinforces the argument - there are now a million LOC in a different language, needing stunning amounts of work to validate it actually functions? Writing the code has never been the bottleneck.
    - tonyedgecombe 5mo ago
      Writing code was definitely the roadblock in a rewrite like this.
- retromario 5mo ago
  In the past 18 months I've seen experienced developers turn out incredible work using llm-assisted tools, over and over again. With the right harnesses, processes and result-oriented testing, you can simply produce so much more high-quality work. I know it's anecdotal, but I have so much data from my own experiences and those of my peers that I know these new tools are here to stay. It also makes me believe that those studies are either flawed or out of date.
andai 5mo ago
Vibe coding indeed originally meant "give in to the vibes [...] and forget that the code even exists." https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383 https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383 In the case of this specific port, the port was done so fast that it is clear humans did not verify the soundness of the translation. It is not clear whether this manual verification will ever occur. That being said, most software projects were already doing "vibe coding" by Dijkstra's standards long before AI showed up. Going on vibes and forgetting that correctness even exists ;) Guaranteeing the correctness of complex code is difficult, but it will increasingly become non-optional as we now have a billion hackers in a data center. --- Edit: "Bun's unreleased Rust port has 13,365 unsafe blocks" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48239790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48239790
throwaway92180 5mo ago
[dead]
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]

b40d-48b2-979e 5mo ago

I'm using LLMs to assist my development and I'm measurably (in all the ways we engineers could possibly care about) doing better work faster. Studies suggest you aren't any faster and may in fact be slower. It's difficult to study such a new tech, but even optimistically, empirical evidence is only showing a ~3% gain in some domains. Writing code is rarely the limiting factor in our work.

cdelsolar 5mo ago
studies suggest nothing. i've released a massive number of features in the last year for several projects that i estimate would have taken me multiple years to put together in a much more mentally exhausting way.
- b40d-48b2-979e 5mo ago
  Your drive-by comments are unwelcome. You can estimate all you want, but the data is collating, and it isn't within your worldview.
  - shard972 5mo ago
    [dead]
  - lanyard-textile 5mo ago
    It is healthy to question results: That's good science. This result wouldn't surprise me if the tooling was limited to, say, copilot :) It would surprise me if it included tooling like Claude Code. Which seems unlikely, given its recency.
  - cdelsolar 5mo ago
    I am not estimating anything. This is my own evidence from my own projects. I have deployed gigantic features this past year, each of which would have taken me the whole year to write.
adamtaylor_13 5mo ago
Those studies have well known flaws. I'm measuring my output so I happen to know I'm not only going faster, but the quality is better. I'm not vibe-measuring my output ;)
Kiro 5mo ago
There's no uncertainty here. Every day I ask myself how long something I did would have taken without it. The answer is always crystal clear. It's not hard or difficult at all.
solidasparagus 5mo ago
I think those studies have framing or methodological issue. I agree the maintenance burden is probably being undervalued by developers in general, but there's just no way the work I do isn't faster. I just categorically couldn't have achieved the outputs I do now in the time windows I have. The software just wouldn't have existed in the world of 3 years ago and I did enough coding back then to say that with certainty.
tonyedgecombe 5mo ago
Surely that argument is dead once someone has migrated a million lines of code in eight days.
- gregoryl 5mo ago
  Surely that reinforces the argument - there are now a million LOC in a different language, needing stunning amounts of work to validate it actually functions? Writing the code has never been the bottleneck.
  - tonyedgecombe 5mo ago
    Writing code was definitely the roadblock in a rewrite like this.
retromario 5mo ago
In the past 18 months I've seen experienced developers turn out incredible work using llm-assisted tools, over and over again. With the right harnesses, processes and result-oriented testing, you can simply produce so much more high-quality work. I know it's anecdotal, but I have so much data from my own experiences and those of my peers that I know these new tools are here to stay. It also makes me believe that those studies are either flawed or out of date.

andai 5mo ago

Vibe coding indeed originally meant "give in to the vibes [...] and forget that the code even exists." https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383 https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383 In the case of this specific port, the port was done so fast that it is clear humans did not verify the soundness of the translation. It is not clear whether this manual verification will ever occur. That being said, most software projects were already doing "vibe coding" by Dijkstra's standards long before AI showed up. Going on vibes and forgetting that correctness even exists ;) Guaranteeing the correctness of complex code is difficult, but it will increasingly become non-optional as we now have a billion hackers in a data center. --- Edit: "Bun's unreleased Rust port has 13,365 unsafe blocks" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48239790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48239790

throwaway92180 5mo ago

[dead]

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]