Hello programmers! I’ve been making a living for a couple of decades figuring out stuff for people and coding whatever will make them happy. It’s fun. I’ve grown to prefer the people to the coding but I still get a kick out of the whole thing.

The problem is: at the job we’re being asked to pivot to vibe coding. At this point the order is to use it for all code, read the slop carefully, argue with the machine for way too long and only then open that PR. Massive productivity gains are expected. I’m appalled from an ethical, philosophical and professional standpoint. We’re a non-profit ngo ffs. My colleagues are fine with it. If I get even slightly critical the group goes awkwardly silent and I get comments on how all the programmers they know from other places don’t code anymore.

If this is how it goes from now on, I’m out. Is it really though? Are all businesses switching to vibe coding? Have some of you started switching career? I think I want to go to meatspace. Hand-made coding could make a cute hobby.

  • Feyd@programming.dev
    0·
    20 hours ago

    Just as assembler did before, high-level code is going to become just another intermediate representation that isn’t really important; what will matter are the prompts and context you give to the LLMs.

    Ah the old “LLMs are just a new layer of abstraction” argument. No they aren’t, and won’t be any time soon.

    • TehPers@beehaw.orgEnglish
      0·
      18 hours ago

      You mean that “write this service make no mistakes” executed with a LLM-as-a-service where the underlying model updates every week and the model itself is deprecated in 8 months isn’t a good idea for a source code representation?

      Nah, it definitely is. It’s called job security.

      • timochka@lemmy.zip
        0·
        12 hours ago

        On the first half, that’s not how it’s done; the input is a much more detailed description of design and architecture coupled with TDD.

        On the second half - I happen to agree, that’s why I think the OpenAI/Anthropic business models are doomed to fail. But that’s where locally deployed models become key - predictable output.

        They don’t need to be better than the best programmer in the world to change how 90% of code is written, they just need to be better than a junior dev from Timbuctoo. And feasably-deployable open models crossed that bar around Q1 this year and are only getting better (Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is another huge leap forward.) We may not be quite there yet, but the destination is now inevitable; adapt or find a new career.

        • TehPers@beehaw.orgEnglish
          0·
          11 hours ago

          On the first half, that’s not how it’s done; the input is a much more detailed description of design and architecture coupled with TDD.

          Yes, I have these coworkers too. I’ve seen what they look like, and it doesn’t change my point.

          But that’s where locally deployed models become key - predictable output.

          Local controlled models help, yes. That isn’t what business do, though. And even for local models, the models are still stochastic as fuck. Maybe that changes in the future, in which case I’d reconsider that view (though natural language is still a terrible interface for telling a computer precisely what to do).

          We may not be quite there yet, but the destination is now inevitable; adapt or find a new career.

          How many years has it been now? Mythos was the end of the world, Fable had to be locked down by the US government, Astra is going to cause humanity to go extinct, and yet here we still are today with vibecoded, mass-produced slop.