Post #1494406

2026-01-18 17:38 UTC

@lucydev I see putting a prompt into AI and hoping that the generated code is correct as a bad idea, especially in complex apps that have long-term maintainability considerations, or when security / money / lives are at stake. For throwaway projects (think "secret santa style gift exchange for a local community with a few extra constraints, organized by somebody with 0 CS experience", vibe coding is probably fine. For professional developers, LLMs can still be pretty useful. Even if you have to review the code manually, push back on stupidity, and give it direction on how to do things, not just what to do (which is honestly what I do for production codebases), it's still a force multiplier.

Replies (2)

@lucydev@wetdry.world 2026-01-18 17:41

@miki that's a reasonable middle ground we can somewhat agree on. I haven't seen AI-generated code being the "force multiplier" some folks swear by, especially with newer things like the config changes in pipewire last year, but i guess ymmv

Open ##1494407
@robotistry@mstdn.ca 2026-01-26 11:54

@miki @lucydev So it's democratizing code by giving many people the ability to do it badly. There is a real question here - something related to the balance of - harm to society and individuals of allowing enormous quantities of badly done things to be created, producing circumstances where actual expertise, understanding, and competence are devalued to the point of no longer being viable careers - benefit to society and individuals of enabling recognition of genius in a few people who would not otherwise have access to a given audience or skill. I am broadly in favour of enabling experts and competent individuals to earn a living from their expertise and competence. I am also broadly in favour of enabling everyone to develop whatever abilities and interests they have. But people with ideas for software lack time, skill, and resources, not access. If there's a demand, why is there no business writing throwaway apps for people? Will AI really be cheaper in the long run?

Open ##1494418