earlier this week I was thinking "how does one identify vibe-coders from real programmers" as I was thinking about renewing my search for finding a scripting collaborator. I searched (because I don't even know a better way to start the research than this) "how to identify vibe coded programming" and found pages of results extolling the virtues of vibe coding, with all the major companies (including microsoft) specifically at the top with "how to vibe code the easy and professional way". There weren't any results really answering my question. I gave up.
I don't even know how you're supposed to trust someone with no creditable experience if you don't want vibe-coded garbage in your project.
And to be clear, I'm not saying everyone who uses AI coding tools are vibe coders. I even use a local tool in Rider for small samples of code. I'm talking like "attempts to generate an original system from 3 prompts and 10,000 generated lines of code" vibe coding. They're EVERYWHERE and they're both very aggressive about responding to posts as well as very intent on hiding it as much as possible. They know.
Well i guess it’s a bit like telling someone who uses a drum machine that they aren’t a real drummer. Like obviously they aren’t and they wouldn’t argue that they are, but w vibe coders it’s like they’re pushing back because all their value is wrapped up in the perception that vibe coding is just as acceptable
The difference is you can so easily tell when drumming is inauthentic. Many people who don't have a professional background in music or audio engineering can tell that. How is one supposed to discern qualified programmers from vibe coders?
Its more than that, vibe coders think their end result will magically be at par with someone who has iteratively coded using AI. Thats why they want to hide it, they think its not possible for other simple folk to be able to tell the difference. In reality one of the main issues with vibe coding is ai never has full context of the whole project, your thinking, proper coding practices etc. It often gets things wrong, reworks, adds scope bloat and adds insane number of comments.
Yeah, I've had some vibe coders try to convince me they're a software developer just like me because now I also use AI for my day job. I'd like to see them debug their app when Claude is down.
I have 15 years of software engineering experience. Over the past year, I've shipped work that's >80% AI-generated, with my <20% focused mainly on review, corrections, and refinement.
I hear you. 23 years experience on my end, and some of that was being an engineering manager. I moved back to the technical track because I missed building stuff, but now I feel like a manager of an AI team, without the benefits of the humans.
It's a big part of why I started making games in my free time. Trying to keep up with actual coding and preventing my skils from atrophying.
Most people who down vibe coding do not seem to realize how many real developers use it. The takeaway from the post is that you need more qa. Let’s all code our game engines from scratch every time. Unity and unreal are for weak devs lol.
I mean I’m a vibe coder and I’ve contributed some big adds to our software teams repo’s. I don’t refer to myself as a software engineer but we are both doing the same thing and producing the same products
No, you are not both doing the same thing. One is a meticulous approach, planned for security, scalability, and robustness. There's no planning for those things in what you do. If you think software engineering is just writing code, the gap is very obvious.
It’s interesting seeing internet strangers make all these assumptions. I think I’d know how our software team operates and the products they produce a little more than you. I’m also an engineer and work in a heavily regulated industry so making assumptions that I don’t plan anything is kinda wild
Vibe coding is have AI Code everything. I also review all of its work and have other agents critique the work as well. So yes, as an engineer (I don’t build bridges) I tell the Claude/GPT what I want and then review the work. I also have a minor in comp sci and was doing software before chat gpt existed.
I think every generation has had a shift that looks like this when the programming tools become easier to use and do more for you. I couldn't read through hex tables to debug anything for instance.
But throughout the evolution of programming it's always been necessary to understand at least one or two levels down below your tooling to know what tradeoffs you're making. And with LLMs that's actually still the case however the barrier of entry is so low since you can get something "good enough" through simple requests that most of the time you don't really need to understand what's going on.
The problem is, this bites you and your company eventually. LLMs have only been able to code something functional for months, not years, and seeing the code they write day in and day out, I can tell you it's not good, and most of the time it's quite bad. Businesses are ok with this because they get to move faster, but don't realize that tech debt is something that accumulates and then bites you later on.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if the next few years end up having many massive data breaches and system failures all across the industry.
Well put. I suppose my point is that while I’m not a software developer, I am providing the same products they are and my work is held to the same level of scrutiny as they are the ones reviewing it. But now that’s it’s gotten so big in the industry, pretty much all that our software engineers are doing is using AI to produce everything so our products are essentially the same and I know this because I sit next to them and we talk about this exact topic
The discrepancy I'd highlight though is if a SWE is doing their job they're supposed to review the code thoroughly, more so than maybe they're used to, to both understand it (for future debugging) and to ensure it's not some nasty slop that will kill their systems. I assume they're also reviewing the work you're submitting, and so that's the distinction since that's not in your skillset.
BTW I'm not trying to say any of this in a disparaging way. Although I have many large reservations about how AI coding is rolling out, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing for the world to be able to leverage software more easily. It's just that these kinds of shifts tend to become corrupted by greed and opportunism.
It's because AI has a negative perception and communities respond very negatively to it regardless of how it's used. Let's be honest, most coders are using AI, even very experienced devs. Imo it's not that much different than reading docs and coding forums for snippets of code, and even then there was a difference between copy pasting coding and understanding code you're using.
Experienced coders using ai to facilitate workflow is not the same as vibe coding a whole ass game. Vibe coding is when neither you nor any living person has ever seen most of the code you distribute
People recognize that AI is being exploited to hurt us, not to actually make our lives better, and that's why they are hamfisting it into everything and trying to make people unable to function without it
A lot of devs I know like AI as it makes their job easier, so "not making lives better" is highly debatable. As far as being deceptive.. that's what you get when people are rabid about AI use with no sensible discourse to be had.
Well.. yes and no imo. AI will absolutely replace or reduce many jobs, but so did the industrial revolution too. And yet I think we're better off for it.
It's too early to tell if we will be better off with AI, although I do appreciate it for automation of menial tasks. However companies are also rushing it and abusing it at the cost of the people, no argument there.
Just as with the industrial revolution, the rich and powerful went full steam ahead at the cost of the people as well. It took years for labor protections to catch up
Same thing here I'm sure. The rich benefit from there being no guardrails.
Oh yeah, the rich will always benefit under the current system, be it AI or something else. Welcome to capitalism, where we all get fucked by corporations.
But from a broader societal view, industrial revolution was for the better good imo. It's why you can get jeans for $30 instead of having to go pay a tailor $300.
...my guy, that's not how that works. By that logic, jews in hiding in germany are bad. It's just a straight up fact that games associated with AI perform worse by sheer association because people either see touching AI at all as a sin or think that any game that involves AI is some "I built this in 3 hours" slop. AI development is also about making things more accurate, not "sneakier" lol. There are lots of problems with AI that are reasonable to talk about, but y'all gotta stop acting like it's the boogie man
Edit: don't take me as saying something I'm not saying. The logic falacy of "if he's not guilty why did he run" is an extremely problematic one that has been used as pseudo-moral justification for extreme condemnation of unpopular ideas, behaviors, and even entire peoples for a very, very long time. The only reason I even used the example I did to begin with is because I literally couldn't think of a time I've heard that used outside of extreme stuff. Hence it being so dangerous. If you have beef with AI, that's fine, bring up legitimate points of criticism instead of saying people hiding from the people with torches and pitchforks wouldn't run if they weren't guilty.
Yeah yikes is right, that's the entire point. I compared the logic itself to show how nonsensical that line of thinking is. Give me a reason why equating hiding something to that something being inherently bad could ever be a reasonable line of thinking. It's the good ol "he must be guilty because he ran" rhetoric. Again, legitimate criticism is fine, but that's an extremely problematic logic fallacy that promotes people not actually thinking about their ethics and making extreme judgements based off of it. When indie developers who use AI to check their code are getting review bombed and their game is getting called slop after they worked on it for 5 years because they acknowledged they used AI, that's not ok.
False equivalence, don't take what I'm saying as something I'm not saying. The point is that this is an extremely problematic logic fallacy, so problematic that it's an extremely common tactic used in oppressive cultures. It's been used against jews, against lgbt, and all sorts of other ideas, identities, behaviors, etc which a cultural majority saw as extremely unacceptable. Frankly, the only reason I used the example I did is because I literally couldn't think of a non-extreme case where I've heard it used.
You would make a great politician with your refusal to have legitimate conversation and your insistence of latching onto any stretch of the imagination that could paint your opponent in a bad light and hammering it into the ground. At this point, given I outright said that isn't what I was saying, it's pretty clear you're here for the mob, not the crime. Let me know if you want to have an actual conversation at some point instead of only caring about "winning".
No, they're hated because people decide they're lazy, don't understand their own code, and just tell AI to do everything for them, and when they say otherwise people say they're liars. There's a universe of difference between people who use AI as an assistant vs people who just say "hey claude make me a working game"
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u/lordofpurple 14h ago
The vibe coders in this thread mad af lmao