If you are wondering how it could possibly be “worth it” the end of the article has this.
The Fastly survey found that senior developers were twice as likely to put AI-generated code into production compared to junior developers, saying that the technology helped them work faster.
So vibes. Vibe coding is “worth it” because people got good vibes.
I’m a senior dev and I want nothing to do with AI. By the time I understand what I want well enough to describe it in a complete sentence or paragraph, I can just write the fucking code myself. I figure it out as I go.
The whole point of having devs under you that is to be able to trust them to get the job done and do it right. You want to be able to delegate tasks to them and not have to peek over their shoulder every five fucking minutes to be certain they’re not making a mess of things.
I seriously doubt AI will ever be able to replace that. Not until they figure out how to make it afraid of fucking up.
senior developers were twice as likely to put AI-generated code into production compared to junior developers, saying that the technology helped them work faster
Perhaps senior devs are more likely to use more granular, step-by-step, controlled prompting. Asking it do write specific functions in specific ways and following specific approaches and conventions instead of just “do me an app, robot bro”.
That’s actually how I am using AI for my work (web dev, pls don’t hate me). If I am stuck or have some tiny function missing for a task I ask AI, check their output - if it’s garbage I continue on my own again or if it’s usable I review the output and continue from there. Also, I think AI can be neat for „rubberducking“ when I am debugging some stupid shit and point me in directions I haven’t looked before.
It’ll sometimes do dumb and/or redundant or too complicated shit. Pile up a couple of those and your codebase can get unmaintainable fast.
I find if you give it small chunks and keep an eye on it, it’s great.
I think one of my recent prompts was “Create a procedure that creates an example configuration file with placeholder values. If a config file doesn’t exist on start, give a warning and create the example config.”
You mean rewrite it all from scratch? If you have any kind of standards that is what you end up doing. If you know what you’re doing you do it right the first time and move on. Using AI for coding it like trying to babysit the most inept, inexperienced intern to ever walk the earth. It wastes time and the end result is far worse.
If you are wondering how it could possibly be “worth it” the end of the article has this.
So vibes. Vibe coding is “worth it” because people got good vibes.
The research shows that - while engineers think AI makes them more about 20% productive - it actually causes an approximate 20% slow-down.
AI cannot use logic or reason. Everything it outputs is a hallucination, even if it’s sometimes accurate. You cannot trust anything it outputs.
I’m a senior dev and I want nothing to do with AI. By the time I understand what I want well enough to describe it in a complete sentence or paragraph, I can just write the fucking code myself. I figure it out as I go.
The whole point of having devs under you that is to be able to trust them to get the job done and do it right. You want to be able to delegate tasks to them and not have to peek over their shoulder every five fucking minutes to be certain they’re not making a mess of things.
I seriously doubt AI will ever be able to replace that. Not until they figure out how to make it afraid of fucking up.
Perhaps senior devs are more likely to use more granular, step-by-step, controlled prompting. Asking it do write specific functions in specific ways and following specific approaches and conventions instead of just “do me an app, robot bro”.
That’s actually how I am using AI for my work (web dev, pls don’t hate me). If I am stuck or have some tiny function missing for a task I ask AI, check their output - if it’s garbage I continue on my own again or if it’s usable I review the output and continue from there. Also, I think AI can be neat for „rubberducking“ when I am debugging some stupid shit and point me in directions I haven’t looked before.
But surely you test the code and review it, right? That’s how you reinstate trust in what it outputs?
Disclaimer: I’ve never used AI to code, not even copilot.
Based on my coworkers… no.
They get the Ai to write the code, and the tests.
Then hand it over to me to review and test.
Its all overly verbose, does things that are not required or desirable, and insists on re-writing existing code to match its own style.
I hate it passionately.
It’ll sometimes do dumb and/or redundant or too complicated shit. Pile up a couple of those and your codebase can get unmaintainable fast.
I find if you give it small chunks and keep an eye on it, it’s great.
I think one of my recent prompts was “Create a procedure that creates an example configuration file with placeholder values. If a config file doesn’t exist on start, give a warning and create the example config.”
It also works great as a replacement for an ORM.
You mean rewrite it all from scratch? If you have any kind of standards that is what you end up doing. If you know what you’re doing you do it right the first time and move on. Using AI for coding it like trying to babysit the most inept, inexperienced intern to ever walk the earth. It wastes time and the end result is far worse.