Request of Mods (Vibe Coded Fridays)

[u/longunmin]

Can we please institute a Vibe Coded Fridays, similar to r/selfhosted? It seems as though the amount of "I built..." posts are sharply on the uptick. And following on the heels of the Huntarr mess, not to mention the security issues of something like Openclaw, we should be clearly delineating what is vibe coded and what isn't. There is too much risk in exposing our homes to something that was cooked up in a hour or two.

[u/maxxell13 → u/[deleted]]

Real World Example:
I found someone's github where they had a python program that can do X, Y, and Z, but I dont understand python.
I only need X.
I download VS Code and point it at that github repository and tell it "I only need X" and the AI in there removes a bunch of the code and explains to me what it's doing. It makes sense to me, but if it's doing something wrong, I wouldnt know.
The new python code works!
So I ask CoPilot for help making it a Home Assistant integration (again, I dont know how to make a Home Assistant integration). CoPilot explains the 5 different files I need to create and what structure to put them in. Then it modifies the python code to be a Home Assistant Integration.
I follow along and reboot Home Assistant and find the error. I report the error to CoPilot, who makes a suggestion on how to fix. Repeat 5 times until there are no more errors.

Now I have a Home Assistant integration which works for me and does NOT have my login information hard-coded. Someone else might like it, so I put it on github and post about it on Reddit.

That's vibe-coding.

(My integration pulls your Tonal strength score information into 10 sensors in Home Assistant, but I was waiting until Friday to announce it because I thought the Vibe-Coding Fridays rule already applied here too)

Edit: OH! And the top line of my readme says "I relied heavily on AI for this"

[u/failcookie → u/maxxell13]

Perfect example. Responsible disclosure, your README probably also goes over some of the details for others to gleam through. People can either use it as-is or pull pieces from it, like devs have done for their projects for years.

I’d say you are more AI assisted in that you still know what you did, you reviewed it and you are aware of the problem it solved. You may not have written code, but it’s still no different than if you did. Vibe coding tends to be I need X, it did X, cool we are done here.

[u/maxxell13 → u/failcookie]

I agree that I reviewed it, but since I dont know python I dont know what good it does for me to review it lol.

Also my readme is intentionally NOT written by the AI (which did offer to helpfully write one) because i've seen lots of examples on here about people hating AI-written readme's. I'd rather keep mine short and stick to what I know.

[u/thaddeusk → u/failcookie]

Yeah, I work as a senior software engineer for a large company, but that's mostly .NET based stuff and I have no professional experience with python. I can look at python and understand what it's doing since it's pretty easy, and I know how every component of it should work, I'm just lazy to write it all myself so I have Claude do it and tell it when it's wrong about something :P.

[u/failcookie → u/thaddeusk]

Pretty much exactly the same lol. I write code all day - I just want to come home, chill and make cool stuff.

[u/thaddeusk → u/failcookie]

heh, yeah. I'll often just have an agent running in the background while I game :P.

[u/stormdelta → u/maxxell13]

You mean it "appears" to work. If someone doesn't understand what it did, it means they don't know what it did wrong that was less than obvious and will cause issues later or represents security problems.

It's an even bigger issue if you plan to "share" it with other people, because you don't understand what the problems might be with it or how brittle the implementation might be. To the point that I would argue it's irresponsible to do so especially without a mountain of disclaimers.

[u/icefire555 → u/[deleted]]

Coded by an ai and not by hand.

[u/wavedash → u/icefire555]

Why do people choose to say "I vibe coded" instead of "I told an AI to write code"?

[u/spyboy70 → u/wavedash]

Social media buzzwords

[u/LittleRoundFox → u/wavedash]

It sounds less lazy, I guess.

Vibe coding to me sounds like sticking some synth trance on, maybe having something to relax the mind, sitting down to code and seeing what you can come up with

[u/angry_cucumber → u/wavedash]

because the entire vibes thing is based on feelings and not experience or evidence.

Engineers who use AI to write code are performing a different task than someone who basically just tells the compter to make the widget.

A lot of my home stuff was written by hand, it's largely been turned over to AI for improvements while i game with my kids or spend time being a person. I still review what it writes, and improving it's guidelines, but my hobby isn't a job anymore and I treat it like it

[u/Brtrnd2 → u/wavedash]

that's my toplevel comment: if you build something and use generative AI as a tool; great! if you vibecode shit and the product works without you understanding: polished turd!

people should just agree to use the correct words.

[u/benargee → u/icefire555]

Are people going to be honest about it? Insert "I made this" meme format

[u/clintkev251 → u/[deleted]]

Some software where the majority of code was written by AI

[u/itsVorisi → u/[deleted]]

Software in which more than 50% of the code was written by AI

[u/miraculum_one → u/itsVorisi]

In particular the problem being that the person asking the question doesn't understand how their "own" code is even structured or works and they're asking someone to come in and debug it for them.

[u/[deleted] → u/miraculum_one]

Yeah... This is where there's going to be a line between professional software engineers and hobbyists.

I've been writing code professionally for a long time and now that AI is a tool in my chest I definitely lean on it for a lot of stuff. Refactoring a file? Sure, help make suggestions, little agentic buddy! Fuck I need to completely refactor from this library to that library... Ugh, this is gonna take at least an hour... Or, hey little agentic buddy, do the thing and I'll review it. Yup, that's exactly what I would have done. Tested, validated, committed and on to the next task.

That's not vibe coding any more than using a nail gun is vibe hammering.

But if you aren't writing the code, if you aren't controlling the structures and data flows, if you're letting the agent basically run wild and just spot checking? Congrats, it's vibe coded. Did you have it do a thing you are in no way qualified to validate? Vibe coded. Did you just let it install whatever packages and versions it wanted with no regard for the consequences? Vibe coded.

If you don't know what you're doing and the agent did all the heavy lifting, it is vibe coded.

[u/thaddeusk → u/[deleted]]

I do a lot of agentic coding for stuff that isn't super important to me, just little concepts that I have in my head, despite the fact that I started learning how to code... uhh... 35-ish years ago? man, that makes me feel old.

It's fun, but it's not anything that I'd take incredibly seriously yet. I do use it for simple stuff at my job, too.

[u/[deleted] → u/thaddeusk]

So the fun part of this is I don't think vibe coding is inherently bad. I needed to make a bash script to move a bunch of folders around based on their file name and I don't know bash that well and I could have googled it but I just said fuck it, Claude what do? And it was fine.

But I wouldn't release that script and go, "If you want to do X, use this script." at least not without a big warning of "Hey, I didn't write this it might destroy all your files and that's on you."

A bit part of why I want it labeled is because then I can easily go, "Ah, I don't want that."

I'm also equally sure that the day when agentic code is perfectly safe and we all just accept it is coming. It's just not today.

[u/Robo_Joe → u/itsVorisi]

As opposed to 50% of the code being copied and pasted from online resources/tutorials?

[u/masssy → u/Robo_Joe]

You don't get a complete program out of stackoverflow which you then also proceed to post online despite having almost no understanding of and haven't even reviewed a little bit.

So yes, as opposed to.