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Vibe code is legacy code - Val Town postblog.val.town/vibe-code
721 sats \ 14 comments \ @Car 5 Aug AI
This got brought up on a call today that I was on, thought I would share with the stackers.
Despite widespread confusion, Andrej Karpathy coined "vibe coding" as a kind of AI-assisted coding where you "forget that the code even exists."

Vibe coding is a spectrum

Vibe coding is on a spectrum of how much you understand the code. The more you understand, the less you are vibing.

Giving a credit card to a child

The worst possible situation is to have a non-programmer vibe code a large project that they intend to maintain. This would be the equivalent of giving a credit card to a child without first explaining the concept of debt.
As you can imagine, the first phase is ecstatic. I can wave this little piece of plastic in stores and take whatever I want!
Which is a lot like AI can build anything now! Nobody needs to learn how to code! Look at what it just made for me!
But if you wait a month, you'll get the credit card bill. Did I actually need to buy all those things? How will I get myself out of this hole?
It's similar for the vibe coder. My code broken. What do all these files and folders even do? How will I ever get this fixed? Can I get a refund for the $400 I spent vibe coding?
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249 sats \ 7 replies \ @optimism 5 Aug
I like the vibe coding == technical debt expression much more than the spectrum concession, which feels like someone trying to be kind... to be PC.
From where I am sitting it is definitely not a spectrum, and it's full-on debt. This is why reviewing a vibe code pull request feels so heavy. Often it's even hard to figure out where to start because you know there is this person on the other end of the pull req that's going to get their butt handed to them by you and discouraged. But the nicer you are, the more they will be encouraged in their attempts to increase the debt even further.
On public repositories I try to balance it by first asking questions about "design choices" and then just shooting it down relentlessly. I also deprioritize anything that looks out of place and if there's an emoji in the diff I put it at the bottom of the todo immediately. Feels a bit like gatekeeping though, which is not an aspect I enjoy much, but quality > everything else.
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199 sats \ 6 replies \ @sox 5 Aug
I truly cannot believe anybody codes with emojis, so every time I read a PR with emojis I already know it's AI, I don't care if you like emojis, it's AI slop to me.
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100 sats \ 2 replies \ @Car OP 5 Aug
wait is AI adding the emojis? or is the person coding doing it? lol
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100 sats \ 0 replies \ @nout 6 Aug
Yeah, AIs tend to add emojis in comments. In some cases it actually helps with readability, but it's true that real devs do that only very rarely.
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18 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 5 Aug
AI - I don't know a single person that would write code like this.
But I know of at least 2 models that do it: Copilot and Gemini. And llama used to do it, not sure if it still does but it sucks for code anyway.
// this function does something cool 😎
int doSomethingCoolWith(int other);
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100 sats \ 1 reply \ @antic 5 Aug
I use emojis gratuitously. They are super useful in logging to be able to distinguish log types.
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192 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 5 Aug
if (!state) {
  🪵.⚠️("😬");
}
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100 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 5 Aug
I still have to keep my end of contribution rules which means ultimately I have to respond to it. Luckily there is no time constraint.
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283 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 5 Aug
I agree with what @calle mentioned on Nostr a while ago: coders with AI vs. coders without AI is what we should focus on, not no-coders with AI ("vibe coders") vs. coders without AI.
Determining how useful AI is for coding by seeing how well people who don't know coding do with it is like determining how useful a car is by giving it to someone who can't drive.
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18 sats \ 2 replies \ @freetx 5 Aug
Vibe Coding is passé ... Vibe Prompting is the new hotness....
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28 sats \ 1 reply \ @Car OP 5 Aug
wow i just gemini searched and came up with promptvibes
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100 sats \ 0 replies \ @freetx 5 Aug
I was completely joking, but I'm not surprised! 😆😆
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @perscrutador 6 Aug
Is vibe coding that way of coding using AI? Even though I'm not part of this segment, I completely agree with the simple fact that if you're giving the AI something you should be doing, you're not fully aware of your work. This applies to any job.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @crrdlx 5 Aug
There is a Goldilocks sweet spot balanced between the two.
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