Thread

1. GPerson · 1785995308 · focus · HN ↗

   Programming is nice because you have lots of different scales of structure to think about, and your program slowly comes together. You see it improving over time as a result of your efforts. You also build your skills and learn. It’s really a nice activity.

   AI systems basically change that whole formula. I’m not sure how people get joy out of constantly vibe coding new projects. It feels like binge watching Netflix shows. I feel like there’s no material value in my 50th vibecoded demo since everyone in this world can vibecode now. Sure I’ve got my custom todo app which is nice, and my custom game plug-in with some neat features for the game I like, and a few other custom apps. Those are mildly useful to me. But every second I spend vibe coding something that’s supposed to be a success for others is just invaded by the thought that even if this thing is any good, someone with real capital can just direct a future AI at it to take it from me, so I’m not really gaining.

   So I think I’ll just stick to using AI occasionally, without letting it ruin the programming activity I love by spoiling it. Due solely to AI, I don’t expect I’ll ever do anything in my life which will impact another person. That’s a personal tragedy, but in a sense I was going to die anyways and so will everyone else, so it doesn’t really matter.

   1. vasco · 1785995454 · focus · HN ↗

      Have you seen what most people do for jobs all day? They do repetitive brainless things, not always new and interesting work. For all of those people, doing this is at least something you do sitting down alone in an office and so they will be queueing to do this.

      1. GPerson · 1785995526 · focus · HN ↗

         I’ve also had menial jobs, like most people.
      2. dgellow · 1785997362 · focus · HN ↗

         And LLMs are what make so many jobs feel repetitive and brainless. Jobs that were engaging, interesting, from which people were learning, developing expertise over time, are now prompting + babysitting agents

         1. vasco · 1785997722 · focus · HN ↗

            The point is most people's jobs are like that. So it doesn't matter how interesting it was or that who did it before doesn't like it anymore because there's a queue of people lined up to do the brainless new version of the job.

            1. dgellow · 1786009704 · focus · HN ↗

               It obviously does matter. The industry was built by people who care about the underlying details and want to engage with the hardware and software at a deep level. That has traditionally been the way people develop expertise - the exact thing you need to effectively use LLMs for anything else than boilerplate work. Ironically agentic stuff pull us away from from that
         2. andrewflnr · 1785999124 · focus · HN ↗

            Many jobs have been repetitive and brainless since long before LLMs. I hate AI as much as the next guy, but come on.

            1. dgellow · 1786009424 · focus · HN ↗

               Lots of people job wasn’t. Now it is. A lot of people in software went into this field because they actually feel satisfied engaging with systems and their implementations.

               Managing a fleet of agent is the exact opposite of what is engaging about software development.

   2. Thanemate · 1785997316 · focus · HN ↗

      >I’m not sure how people get joy out of constantly vibe coding new projects. It feels like binge watching Netflix shows.

      It's just power fantasy. It's amazing the first couple of times but as it wears off and becomes the new norm you forgot how being the one who decides which thing does what feels like.

      Luckily (or unluckily?) the industry only cares about the end result, and flushes out people who used to reward for their passion and dedication naturally.

      1. whstl · 1786004256 · focus · HN ↗

         A lot of this is from non-tech workers wanting to expand their repertoire as well.

         They have no clue what they're doing programming-wise, and in some cases this is perfectly fine, but after years of SaaS, some people are taking it to extremes, and spending millions of tokens on things that could be a spreadsheet or a note in the calendar.

         Just recently we had someone deliver a report in the format of a 200.000 LOC application that requires several clusters to run, for example. It does all querying in real time from clandestine APIs, or by crawling existing systems. The person who asked for the report asked for it not to be deployed.

      2. eddieroger · 1786044916 · focus · HN ↗

         I get nothing of the power fantasy, of it, but I do get joy out of vibe coding.

         As I've gotten older, the amount of ideas I have here and there has remained constant, while the time I have, or brain power at the end of the day when I can work on my passion projects, has diminished. What was once basically a second day job at night became family time, baths, dinner, etc. So while I may be too exhausted to sit and code, I am not too tired to sit and type my ideas, or discuss a single feature I want to see, or review what's there. I get joy that ideas are getting out of my head faster despite less brainpower to get them there. I can always grab the reigns and take over myself, but that's not the kind of thing that wins against going to bed.

   3. vidarh · 1786007123 · focus · HN ↗

      > I’m not sure how people get joy out of constantly vibe coding new projects. It feels like binge watching Netflix shows.

      I get joy out of it because it solves actual problems I have that I don't have time to solve manually, or don't want to. E.g. I just recently had Codex add a mechanism for two-level virtual desktops because I wanted groups of them. An hour later I had two-level virtual desktops in my wm that worked exactly how I wanted it, with support for it in my desktop switcher. I could write it myself, but why would I? I love writing code for various projects, but sometimes I just want the outcome.

      1. [deleted] · 1786018071 · focus · HN ↗

         [deleted]

      2. GPerson · 1786019225 · focus · HN ↗

         For me that’s a slippery slope. It’s not really clear what parts of my hobby project are the good parts and what parts are unfulfilling. When I start including AI too much I end up feeling that none of it is fulfilling. When I do things manually I feel pride in the details however, even though those same details on another day would make me feel like I’m wasting my precious life.

         I spent 2 months having Opus build a demo for a project I dreamt of for 15 years, but somehow now I can’t feel interested in it. I’m trying to avoid this. A good use case for me has been using AI to help me acquire all primary source documentation on a topic and then prepare a curated sequence of study based on a small demo I’d like to build.

         Keep in mind I’m talking about how I’m approaching creative programming in my personal free time.

         1. vidarh · 1786025805 · focus · HN ↗

            To me it's very easy: If I want to do a change by hand for the joy of doing that, I do. But if I want a piece of functionality now and don't want to set aside time to build it, I let an agent do it.

            It boils down to whether I dream about the outcome or how to do it.

            E.g. I have no emotional attachment to my window manager - I wrote it (by hand, originally) because I wanted a specific set of functionality, not because I particularly wanted the experience of writing one.

            I've recently made lots of changes to it with Opus because I wanted another set of functionality and was elated not to have to spend time doing it manually because what I wanted was the functionality.

            I'm now a very happy user of a better window manager than I was before.

            Conversely, I have dozens of projects I stay closer to, because I care about the code and don't particularly care if that means I might have to wait for years to get to something usable, if ever.

            1. GPerson · 1786026879 · focus · HN ↗

               I think there’s a lot of need for people to help others understand how to healthily engage with this technology. I do struggle with turning it off once I get started on it.

               I also believe I see the future coming very fast. I’ve been addicted to watching television for weeks on end or playing games for months on end. I don’t want to fall into something like that again. The vibe coding thing feels exactly like that to me.

      3. jatora · 1786019330 · focus · HN ↗

         This. And the AI detractors in this thread are the same I think, and are virtue signalling.

         1. GPerson · 1786022455 · focus · HN ↗

            I’m not virtue signaling? I’ve shared exactly my experience. People experience reality differently and that’s not some affront on you.

            1. [deleted] · 1786026293 · focus · HN ↗

               [deleted]

            2. jatora · 1786026332 · focus · HN ↗

               Woops i responded to the wrong comment sorry!
   4. armchairhacker · 1786019440 · focus · HN ↗

      In the past I’ve experimented with many different programming paradigms. I think my AI coding benefits from that experience. I want to find new paradigms to write extensible, modular systems with AI, a problem that is still open. One thing I’ve learned is that when implementing a complex system, no paradigm eliminates the need to write lots code (covering many ugly edge-cases) tests, which previously required lots of boring, slow work, but AI is very good at that so maybe can make it less boring and faster.
   5. FeepingCreature · 1786021957 · focus · HN ↗

      > I’m not sure how people get joy out of constantly vibe coding new projects.

      What? It's the simplest thing in the world. You get the product. Isn't that the point of all programming? You want a thing and you speak a magic incantation and then you have the thing, to keep and use.

      > even if this thing is any good, someone with real capital can just direct a future AI at it to take it from me, so I’m not really gaining.

      This kind of sounds like you're writing code for social credit. Like, you don't actually want the thing, you want to be "the person who made the thing". If you want the thing for its own sake, nobody can take it from you and what somebody with capital does on their own services does not harm your use one whit.

      1. GPerson · 1786023230 · focus · HN ↗

         Well I used to imagine I’d make a business out of the thing. I also would sometimes think the thing could give me professional opportunities.

         1. FeepingCreature · 1786023582 · focus · HN ↗

            Sure. I do agree that AI is a problem in this sense: programmer skill as a hiring differentiator is becoming a lot less legible these days. It just feels personally odd to be the reason you do the thing. When I encountered my first programmable computer I very quickly realized that I wanted to do more of it, and not too much later that this was the thing I would spend the rest of my life doing. That it was also very commercializable, I have always considered as a kind of happy accident.

            1. GPerson · 1786023711 · focus · HN ↗

               That’s my experience, starting at 10 years old and trying to figure out how the the moving pictures were in the screen.

               I didn’t say that was the reason though. A person has a lot of wants and needs right?

               I’m not following why it’s strange to want to be skilled and engage with the craft itself based on that part of the message to be honest. Maybe I’m misunderstanding.

               I tried to convey in my first post that I’m gonna keep programming for no material gain and no way of producing anything of value for others. I am worried about how I’ll support myself but this thread is about the hobby.

               1. FeepingCreature · 1786025058 · focus · HN ↗

                  That's fair, I think I read something into your comment that wasn't really in there...

                  Personally speaking, the feeling of "getting the thing and then having the thing" - the personal todo app, the custom apps - is why I do anything in programming. Programming is the project where I can speak a spell and then I get a nice thing. That's very cool, and I do like the process, but at the end of the day the nice thing is what I'm doing it for- it's not a side benefit, it's the payoff. I get a burst of happiness every time that the thing quietly does its thing that I wouldn't have had otherwise. So to me, the LLM mostly just feels like I suddenly got a lot of friends who are willing to help me get the thing and also have a very complementary skillset. So it's an improvement, and then there's also a reward at the end!

                  Example: I'm playing Satisfactory right now, with a mod that puts a computer in the game that can control game events. I use the computer to do cargo train routing in the game, ie. it runs a program that scans target cargo depots and looks for items that are below a level, and then dispatches trains to find these items and bring them to the destination. Which I once would have written by hand, but was now done entirely by Sonnet. I did have to put plenty of effort into guiding Sonnet to the approach that worked, and I put several AIs together, and this felt a lot like "explaining something" which is a process I enjoy uncomplicatedly anyways. And I think, to be honest, the enjoyment I would have gotten out of the programming part once, was very largely "type-2 fun"- an annoyance followed by a nice reward. Now I'm getting the nice reward for free and can focus on actual industrial and rail network design. And I still get a burst of happiness every time I see a train busily speed off to a new destination. So far as I can tell, at least for me it's all upside.

                  1. GPerson · 1786026149 · focus · HN ↗

                     I actually think that’s a great use of AI, and sounds similar to some of my use cases.

                     “And I think, to be honest, the enjoyment I would have gotten out of the programming part once, was very largely "type-2 fun"- an annoyance followed by a nice reward.”

                     Yea I’ve had similar thoughts. Other thoughts have been something like “I’ll have different types of projects and try to be thoughtful in advance about what this is doing for me. If it’s about the building up a system manually and slowly, and having that kind of experience, then I’ll only use the AI maybe as a primary source gatherer or maybe in some limited sense.” And “Okay well this is an MMO and even though in the past I would have wanted to program this plug-in, I guess I’m middle aged now and there’s only so much time and I’d probably be really excited about using my programming energy on these dozen other things I’ve always wanted to work on, and having the thing would be a strict positive compared to not having the thing, so I’ll have the AI make this plug-in which makes the game (which is about play) more fun.”

                     Programming is a lot of things, so the ambiguity of language probably causes a lot of conflict here.

                     1. FeepingCreature · 1786026714 · focus · HN ↗

                        Yeah! And now the mod has fixed input events, I can actually have a proper configuration GUI for this, and I could I suppose write a GUI toolkit for the nth time, but it kind of feels like the sort of thing that's barely cool the first time, lol. And I already know if I let Sonnet or Opus do it, it'll work fine after the third try or so, and what's more it's going to look a lot better. And I'll enjoy using it every time instead of half-dreading finding another bug.

                        1. GPerson · 1786028763 · focus · HN ↗

                           Another strict positive I’ve had with AI is having it figure out how to deal with bureaucracy. This is dangerous due to privacy issues, but I was seriously depressed for a period, felt like I could not do it, and the AI figured out which agency I had to contact and how to contact them etc… to do some imminently important thing, and if this thing wasn’t done I would have been in serious trouble. I don’t care to know how to interface with that (and the system was pretty miserable).

                           In the past I guess it would have overrun and I’d be in trouble. Maybe that would have taught me to handle my affairs though. I doubt it.

   6. newswasboring · 1786026794 · focus · HN ↗

      > Programming is nice because you have lots of different scales of structure to think about, and your program slowly comes together.

      Programming is nice cause of this for you. Other people have other preferences. When I got my first LED to blink, I wasn't thinking about the elegance of my code. Same for when moved sprites or made a async stateless compute system for MATLAB analysis. There are people who are driven by the artifacts they produce. That's just how our brains are wired I guess, outcome oriented. I see nothing wrong in that.

      Btw, I feel like there is this view that all people using agents are the apocryphal "vibe coders". That is just not true. The process of creation remains the same. Break it down into smaller pieces. Work those pieces till a piece it done. Make sure it all comes together. People seriously using these agents are not writing "implement gta6. Make no mistakes".

      1. GPerson · 1786034047 · focus · HN ↗

         Programming has a lot of nice features and accurately capturing them all in a hacker news comment isn’t that easy, so maybe you could have some consideration for that in the future. I also want effects to happen in the world. I also like the slow process of craft.

         I’m anticipating not a very far away future when “implement gta 6” will not be that different from torrenting gta 3 in the 2000s. The current agent era feels very ephemeral. You’re choosing to interpret some version of AI based programming that you enjoy with what I think is the common interpretation of vibe coding. If you like your process then go ahead with it. I’m not stopping you.

         You seem to want the AI supported gratification and the feeling of process and craft. So make your process and think of it however you like. There’s literally nothing I can or would do to get in your way.

         1. newswasboring · 1786040034 · focus · HN ↗

            Your comment seems unnecessary aggressive. Did I offend you in any way? I just gave my perspective.

            1. GPerson · 1786040314 · focus · HN ↗

               Yea the wording that it was some way or another “for you” came across as aggressiveness so I responded in kind.

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.