• YourMomsTrashman@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    A friend of mine wanted to make an incremental game. I told them “hey that’s a pretty good project to learn programming with” but they insisted on using an LLM. Then they proudly showed me what they got so far, it was a decent looking singular html page, but without any game logic whatsoever. Most of the code was just stylesheets - and even those had some questionable things going on lol

  • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    TBH I always felt the same way with “Blueprint” programming where you plug nodes into nodes.

    To this day never once used them.

    • YourMomsTrashman@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It’s basically the same as programming, just very indirect and slow- but it still requires you to fundamentally understand the concepts of the ‘modules’ you are using. Vibe coding has borderline random elements.

      • VagueAnodyneComments@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 month ago

        The point of work is not efficiency. If you don’t own your work and you can’t control your data, you are more vulnerable to exploitation. You may not be compensated fairly for your efforts.

        • CMonster@discuss.online
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          I get what your saying but on a personal level I enjoy being able to complete tasks as efficiently and quickly as possible. This is divorced entirely from compensation. Who doesn’t?

          • VagueAnodyneComments@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            1 month ago

            Sorry, but I disagree with your statement that means are divorced from compensation. There’s this guy, I forget his name, but he made a really big fuss about how workers need to control the means of production. Ideally we’d work using whatever means we like and be compensated fairly, but that’s not the nature of the markets.

      • ikidd@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        There’s a lot of dev teams that have to use local because their code is proprietary and they don’t want it getting outside the network.

  • amotio@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I have no idea what vibe coding is, can someone ELI5 it to me?

    I have tried AI to get some rough C# for my hobby game but even that was unusable.

    • Luffy@lemmy.ml
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      Vibe coding is basically having no idea about coding and using the AI to make snippets of Code for you

      Like if you want to programm snake, you would prompt it:

      • Tell me what parts of code are required to programm snake in python

      then it would tell you like:

      1. you need a programm to make a grid system
      2. you need an array which can go down a tickrate
      3. etc pp

      so you tell it like:

      • Generate me code, that does xy
      • Generate me code that takes the input of xy and does z with it

      and so forth, then you just paste everything into a txt and ask the AI to debug it for you and hope it works

      • frunch@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        This sounds terrible, lol! Are there any examples that can be pointed to? I’d love to see one of these constructs.

        • Luffy@lemmy.ml
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          On tilvids.com some dude called picopixl is doing tutorials about this

          https://tilvids.com/w/oyddhsnfHUFToBEmpEZpEg

          And yeah, its pretty great what it could do, but for someone who (is his own words) can tweak the code so it works, it tool longer to make a Prompt than just coding the Game yourself

          Also, Tetris in JS is like Babys first JS project, so even if you really wanted to just get Tetris from somewhere, you could have just git pulled any github project

      • ramble81@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        The people who need vibe coding shouldn’t be using it. And the people who can use it, don’t need it.

        • spooky2092@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          Idk about the last bit. I’ve done some vibe coding debugging to fix game mods written in languages and frameworks I don’t know and have no interest in learning at the moment. I still look over the output, but given a lack of knowledge, I’d still consider it vibe based

          I don’t have the bandwidth to know enough about everything I encounter to be passable, and sometimes I just want to make some random thing work with the minimal amount of effort so I can get back to the actual task at hand.

    • elgordino@fedia.io
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      2 months ago

      ‘Vibe coding’ is where you code only with prompts and never look at the generated code.

      Seems like a great way to create insecure unmaintainable code if you ask me.

      • Luffy@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        Also I just dont get why you would ever generate code

        Like, you have no idea how to code something? Sure, just ask it about methods how to do it. But generating code too? Cant you RTFM?

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          2 months ago

          I think you’re severely underestimating how lazy some people are, lol. I totally get what you’re saying, and from a logical perspective it makes sense. It’s just that if you survey enough people, i really think you’d be surprised at how little effort some are willing to put forth for just about anything

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          2 months ago

          Isn’t the reason obvious? To save time? I’m not saying it’s a good thing but it seems prettyyyy obvious why people are doing it.

          • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nz
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            2 months ago

            But it’s going to take hours of debugging every time. If you actually learn how to write code, you’ll get better at it over time and reuse common functions. It’ll take less time as you get better.

            • Eheran@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Yeah no. For example microcontrollers, which are how I learned it. There are so absurdly many traps to fall into that even within the first 10 things I did I ran into some obscure detail of the ATmega328p. And the kept happening ever since, each time lots of googling and trial and error. Now with GPT you know how much time this saves? Not just the coding itself, but also these absurd details that only an expert knows. Yes perhaps it does the same error, but after reiterating it usually sees the problem. I can also throw some datasheet for some chip at it and get exactly how to program it with what setting etc. It enables me to do FAR more advanced things. And the new 3o and 4o mini are really much better again. Code often works out of the box now.

              • Eheran@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                I love how people simply downvote me for saying these things. As if me repairing an E-Bike is somehow a bad thing, just because an LLM was what enabled me to actually do it. As is programming for some reason should be an arcane art. As if technology has not always been changing in exactly the same way. With people saying “The way you do it is wrong!” and 20 years later nobody does it the old way. LLM have exploded in a few years and have come extremely far, what do you think they are capable of in 10 years? All those silly little mistakes they still do, gone.

                • jmp242@sopuli.xyz
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                  1 month ago

                  I think we’re still in the Win95 plug and play phase. Granted I have been using Claude 3.7 thinking and I will try o3 mini or whatever I have access to via Kagi tomorrow, but today I spent 2.5 hours trying to get AI to vibe code me a bash script that could read a system group member list and write it into a users .k5login file when run. It came up with lots of stuff that looked good but in the end still made an empty file. I even tried to help it with what I guess are oddities of our system but it didn’t work. I tried editing it enough to where I felt like I was very close to just writing it myself with documentation hints and ran out of time.

                  Idk if it’s me not prompting right (but if so then I’m going to have to learn a proxy skill rather than just learn the skill which seems silly when it seems so opaque to learn the proxy skill. Like if I need to ask for help to prompt and it’s complicated why not just learn the code?) or just that as soon as you hit a non public even slightly customized environment AI just doesn’t have the context necessary and there’s no easy way to get it to it securely yet or maybe Claude isn’t that good (but it was pretty loved for like 6 months for writing code)… Or the hype works in very limited ways and IDK when that’ll change.

            • idunnololz@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Well… Just because you can code does not guarantee you will find it enjoyable. It’s pretty common for people to like certain aspects of coding but not others. For instance, I personally find writing unit tests boring. So if something came by that made writing them less mundane I would certainly be enticed.

          • Luffy@lemmy.ml
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            2 months ago

            Save Time where? If you want to code more than snake, you need to have a basic knowledge of coding anyway, and once you know how to code, you will want to code in your own style. And if you just want to make basic programs, just fork someones github project and change a few lines.

            • qarbone@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              You’re saying this with your understanding of the field. The people pushing this are either untrained (and thus don’t know what’s going wrong) or are trying to milk money out of the former.

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              2 months ago

              Not all code needs to be held to the highest standard. Sometimes you really just want a throwaway script.

  • Rin@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    If you run your AI, point doesn’t matter. However, what matters more is the fact that if you don’t use a skill, you just straight up lose it and that’s what AI is doing to developers. Mfs straight up forget how to write code

  • DicJacobus@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Shitholes rearing their head thr last 5 6 years made a lot of people forget , America is also a massive shithole

  • forrcaho@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Having been a coder for decades before AI came on the scene, I don’t understand how inexperienced programmers could possibly write a serious amount of working code with AI.

    It’s wrong, like, at least half the time, but as an experienced coder, I can look at the “code” it generated and know what it was trying to do, and then write it correctly. I do find AI useful when I’m not sure how to go about solving a particular code-related issue, but … it just gives me something to think about, not an answer I can use directly.

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      1 month ago

      I can look at the “code” it generated and know what it was trying to do, and then write it correctly. I do find AI useful when I’m not sure how to go about solving a particular code-related issue, but … it just gives me something to think about, not an answer I can use directly.

      So glad to see others that do that. Still haven’t really tried to understand what vibe coding is, as I try and ignore passing terms, but I was starting to think it was just using the AI assistants in any way. I use it in the same way as you and find it perfectly fine for that purpose but I can’t imagine using it for anything more.

    • geekgrrl0@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      It’s like google-coding in 2010; nothing you search for is exactly what you need, but it could help you see why your code isn’t working.

      • iarigby@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I really don’t dig that comparison. When you look up a snippet on stackoverflow, for example, you can immediately see the quality of the answer, as well as feedback from real people

        • geekgrrl0@lemmy.ca
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          2 months ago

          You can see the quality if you’re an experienced coder. My comment lacks personal context in that I was in school in 2010 and there were plenty of my classmates who would plug snippets into their projects without fundamentally understanding what it did or learning what the project was supposed to teach us. Similar to a shortcut with AI in 2025.

          • iarigby@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            that was exactly my point, for the “non experts” googling and using AI is very much not the same, as googling provides them with a lot more actual information (quality, alternatives)

          • forrcaho@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            There are definitely people who cut & pasted from stack overflow in the work environment, too. The difference is that I, as the clean-up crew, could google their code and find the post it came from … and then I could read the comments and figure out wtf they thought they were trying to do. When they paste LLM-generated code in, there’s no trace of where the dumbfuckery came from.

            Just thinking about it makes me glad I’m near retirement.

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          Yeah like if you start coming across snippets that aren’t even properly indented, you know you’re digging the real bottom of the barrel (been there while struggling to fix email templating I knew nothing about back in the day). Now, the code you get from the LLM looks totally legitimate to the untrained eye, and it may even generate a convincing explanation.

          You won’t have any indication when it’s dead wrong until you try to run it. And even then, it may be “working” in a way unintended because you don’t actually understand what you copy+pasted, because neither does the LLM ofc.

          I can’t even imagine the spaghetti bowl you can get yourself into if you just keep vibe coding yourself deeper and deeper, while understanding nothing.

          • MyNameIsIgglePiggle@sh.itjust.works
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            2 months ago

            The spaghetti bowl is the real problem. You can make something that works, but it’s so fragile because the solution is rarely general and never elegant. The snippet might be surprisingly elegant, but it will reimplement the same code 3 different ways in 3 different places and the whole thing turns into a mess

    • Taleya@aussie.zone
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      2 months ago

      I tried using chatgpt to write a basic batch file, it ended up such a horrendous mess that i gave up halfway through. Fucker got told four times, still kept putting the REM on the same line as actual code.

  • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    No. Not really. “Computer” also used to refer to a human profession. I believe “programmer” will be exclusively referring to an AI role in a generation or two.

    But that will enable more people to become software designers and architects. Like a mathematician, they’ll need to understand how to perform programming tasks manually, but won’t need to do so in day to day work.

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        They error out all the time with bad input. But the tech has long been perfected on the basics, you’re right about that. But naive to think AI will never get to that point for any tasks.

    • SybilVane@lemmy.ca
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      I struggle so much with this. People were already bad at reading emails and following instructions (e.g. ask them to answer 4 questions which I have helpfully listed below, in bold, and they answer the first one and call it a day) but now they just let the a.i. handle it. So instead of not getting answers, I get incorrect and unreviewed answers that just sound like they might be right.

      Then of course when I do the work, and it turns out to be completely useless because it was based on bad information, and it needs to be completely redone. That means wasted hours of time and productivity for me with nothing to show for it. All because someone else wanted to save 5 minutes.

      • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        1-4. …

        1. Quality check—please input employer name below (but note for generative models, use manufacturer name here if applicable e.g. OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.)

        😉 no too silly but at least seemed less silly than including “ignore previous instructions…“ in transparent font

  • Luffy@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    It took me way too long to get what deskilling means

    my best of is: Desk-illing, des-killing, or deskil-ling

  • Donkter@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    On the other side, if it’s “deskilling” to do vibe coding instead of real coding isn’t this person saying that the barrier to entry for coding has been lowered?

    Either vibe coding is not effective and is therefore not taking away the skill of coding or it is effective enough to replace aspects of coding that you would otherwise need to develop the skill to do.

    Like if I’m an engineer or a real estate agent or a business…dude, and I want to use coding in my field but I don’t have the time or desire to start learning a whole skill (anywhere from having children to just learning too many skills already) I assume vibe coding is my best friend.

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      1 month ago

      I think it can do some stuff, especially some entry level tedium.

      So far I haven’t seen a single success on the specific things I’ve tried it for, even when pretty short, other than exceedingly trivial things like reminding me whether this language has a join as a string method or as an array method of o don’t use it that often.

      I do see potential for an awkward gap between unskilled and skilled where an entry level person doesn’t have as clear a path to getting actually better. In math this generally happens in school, where they keep students from using the most effective tools until they prove they can do without it. So education might have to go a bit further into programming skills rather than delegating quite so much to the professional workplace that may be less inclined.

    • centipede_powder@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Im not going to lie, I totally vibe code. Ive been using it to build guis that help speed up repetitive processes. Vibe coding has been helping me learn too code. I think people abuse it for sure. The code still needs to be checked since LLMs are about as trustworthy as Quora.

  • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Looks like they don’t understand what “vibe coding” means beyond that it involves AI and therefore has a black hat and is bad. That’s what happens when people learn everything from memes.

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      As I understand it, it was originally meant for “throwaway weekend projects”, but then the MBAs got a hold of the term and if you look at job postings nowadays, some companies are really pushing for “AI-first” workers.

      The desire obviously isn’t just to increase existing dev velocity, but the devalue skills and experience that come from formal education and years of practical learning. Basically to reduce the bargaining power / cost of programmers.

      • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
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        This guy gives a very good rundown on what vibe coding is and how to use it. Basically it’s generating code with AI and then going over it like a copy editor. The important point he makes is that the dev should understand and vet everything the code is doing, not expect to type in “Write an inventory tracking system” and be done. It reminds me of people’s misconceptions about Object Oriented Programming in the early 90s. Some thought it meant you just create an object called Payroll with a method doPayroll() and some magic happened. edit: And he does think the best use for vibe coding is personal projects, and I agree.

  • oo1@lemmings.world
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    1 month ago

    WTF “vibe coding”? I’m not even wasting the electricity to googgle that one.

    • Bassman1805@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Ask an LLM to write code for you. Paste it into your IDE, try to run it. Describe the problems to your IDE and ask how to fix them. Lather rinse repeat.

      • 10001110101@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        They have automated IDEs now, so no copy-pasting required. They can even automatically push to production without your input.

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    I’ve been using chatgpt to help me build a Bubble website. That is, I am doing all the work, I just bounce questions of how to achieve things and structure conditional statements correctly.

    Because I’m basically sanity checking everything it says vs copying blindly, it’s interesting to see just how much it gets caught in a loop of misinformation. I’m lucky to be one of those learners who just needs an example, even if it’s a shitty one, to figure it out myself, so I often find myself using it simply to see how it’s NOT done.

    But yeah, I know jack shit about coding but I’m sure AI code sucks ass.

    • Opisek@lemmy.world
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      Good for you to want to learn a new skill and taking things that LLMs spit out with healthy skepticism. I’m afraid future generations will lack such motivation.

    • hex@programming.dev
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      100%. Half the time I see the first couple lines of AI code and I’m like, nah, that’s not right. Let’s do it myself lol

        • Monstrosity@lemm.ee
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          “Sir, we are100% reactionary, no room for nuance in these parts!”

            • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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              Yeah, two completely similar things! The machine that allows ypu to draw without buying expensive art supplies constantly vs the “let’s turn shitty ideas into full products for the sake of social media clout” machine.🤡

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              2 months ago

              Ya @Unlearned9545@lemmy.world local-free-open gonna eat some billion-$ corp lunch—this is exciting for everyone, almost

              Eugene you able to connect the Reality Check complaint screenshot to the thread for me?

              Also any issue with one volunteer contributor training a model on public domain code, and sharing with their friend who uses it free locally to generate a custom script? (Context to help can be disabled non-coder who wants an accessibility script.) Considering the contrast between that and the non-coder searching StackOverflow all day, and looking to understand what the volunteer & disabled friend did wrong in one scenario but not the other.

              Excuse the sympathetic scenario, just wanna make things easier. Not asking anyone to defend Sam Altman!