Hello programmers! I’ve been making a living for a couple of decades figuring out stuff for people and coding whatever will make them happy. It’s fun. I’ve grown to prefer the people to the coding but I still get a kick out of the whole thing.
The problem is: at the job we’re being asked to pivot to vibe coding. At this point the order is to use it for all code, read the slop carefully, argue with the machine for way too long and only then open that PR. Massive productivity gains are expected. I’m appalled from an ethical, philosophical and professional standpoint. We’re a non-profit ngo ffs. My colleagues are fine with it. If I get even slightly critical the group goes awkwardly silent and I get comments on how all the programmers they know from other places don’t code anymore.
If this is how it goes from now on, I’m out. Is it really though? Are all businesses switching to vibe coding? Have some of you started switching career? I think I want to go to meatspace. Hand-made coding could make a cute hobby.
It’s normalized now but I don’t see it lasting. I’m retiring at the end of this year cause I’ve had enough of it and I don’t want to wait anymore for companies to finally figure it out. I’ve told so many what needs to change, what they need to do in order to fix their builds (mainly consisting of rebuild it, rehire the devs you laid off, use AI as a rubber duck only) and none of them listen. They thank me for my time, cut a cheque, and send me on my way. I had the idiotic notion of trying to change things, hopefully make some people see the light but they’ve all drunk the kool-aid and have all pushed all their poker chips in and are currently hoping it works out. it won’t.
Any dev worth their salt can look at what’s been produced and everything is garbage. everything. I’ve yet to meet a single developer of any level that has looked at something that’s been vibe coded and said “hey, that’s not bad!” It’s all crap. the ONLY things that would ever work is if the AI somehow managed to churn something out to be 100% complete and working on the first attempt. something that will never need to be upgraded or scaled or something that would never interact with the user space. Name me something that does that.
The issue as it stands right now is it’s taking too long to fail. it will fail, I guarantee you that, but it’s taking too long. Developers and programmers and engineers can’t wait anymore. They’re not keeping their skills up because many just don’t see a point. Many have been unemployed from the field for so long now they’ve taken different career paths. We’re simply losing developers due to time.
It should have happened by now, should have happened months ago. the gaps in training data are increasing. you get way more hallucinations than solutions. the tool is absolutely worthless but the problem is the people utilizing the tool don’t know any of this. thus token use increases.
What are your thoughts for using AI to colour in & do the tedious bits? So you plan out the structure of what you’re trying to do, work out the individual pieces and get the AI to do a bunch of the (well specified) leg work. I’ve found it fairly reliable like this, especially for things that involve looking up function parameters in unfamiliar APIs. But this does depend on a thorough look over what comes out as well. No doubt there’s still issues that can pop up but generally have found it to be useful overall
If the API is unfamiliar how do you know what it puts out is the best way to use the API without going and reading the docs anyway?