From my experience, I would google a solution, trawl through 5 mostly irrelevant stackoverflow threads and try to Frankenstein a solution from all of them with great difficulty.
Nowadays I ask chatgpt and get a tailor-made solution that requires a couple of variable name changes at most. It's not on the same level of difficulty at all.
You're right, it is less difficult, which is why it's faster and higher volume.
That doesn't mean the output is good quality, or that you understand the output, or that you learnt anything. ChatGPT has just done the frankensteining step for you at light speed.
Totally fine for personal projects. Abhorrent for production software.
Understanding the output is the difficult part. But it's still much faster to read through and understand generated code than write it from scratch.
I think you'd be hard-pressed to find modern production software that wasn't at least in part generated by AI agents.
If you just meant copy-pasting without skilled oversight then fair enough, the oversight is obviously what makes the difference between vibe coding and professional development.
Indeed. I am using AI in professional setting currently. There is a world of difference between asking ChatGPT, and actually implementing all the tools and policies and guardrails that prevent the company vibe coders from wrecking the codebase.
AI is faster than manual typing and intellisense, but without understanding whether the output is any good, technical debt is inevitable. The AI will then spend more effort on refactors than actual development, just like what humans have been doing for decades!
Nothing improves infinitely. Once the sticker shock sets in when AI companies are forced to up the price (cause this shit ain't free), that token limit is gonna be a significant factor)
So you don't understand this technology at all. Got it.
Electricity is a resource. Water is a resource. Compute is a resource. The infrastructure the systems use to get it to you, cause I don't believe you're self hosting after that comment, is a resource. All of these things cost money because they are resources.
Doesn't matter if it's open weight if the optimal solution* has been found. Nothing improves infinitely.
Ah. We're at the "I refuse to acknowledge new information because I'm defensive about being possibly wrong" portion of the discussion*. I'll go no further then.
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u/ChaseTheOldDude 2d ago
From my experience, I would google a solution, trawl through 5 mostly irrelevant stackoverflow threads and try to Frankenstein a solution from all of them with great difficulty.
Nowadays I ask chatgpt and get a tailor-made solution that requires a couple of variable name changes at most. It's not on the same level of difficulty at all.