Comment by anonymous908213
1 day ago
The secret is that it doesn't work. None of these people have built real software that anyone outside their bubble uses. They are not replacing anyone, they are just off in their own corner building sand castles.
1 day ago
The secret is that it doesn't work. None of these people have built real software that anyone outside their bubble uses. They are not replacing anyone, they are just off in their own corner building sand castles.
Just because they're one-off tools that only one person uses doesn't mean it's not "real software". I'm actually pretty excited about the fact that it's now feasible for me to replace all my BloatedShittyCommercialApps that I only use 5% of with vibe-coded bespoke tools that only do the important 5%, just for me to use. If that makes it a "sand castle" to you, fine, but this is real software and I'm seeing real benefit here.
> I'm actually pretty excited about the fact that it's now feasible for me to replace all my BloatedShittyCommercialApps that I only use 5% of with vibe-coded bespoke tools that only do the important 5%, just for me to use.
Aren't you worried that they'll work fine for 3 weeks then delete all your data when you hold them slightly different? Vibe coded software seems to have a similar problem to "Undefined Behaviour", in that just because it works sometimes doesn't mean that it will always work. And there's no limit on what it might do when it doesn't work (the proverbial "nasal demons") - it might well wipe your entire harddrive, not just corrupt it's own data.
You can of course mitigate this by manually reviewing the software, but then you lose at least some of the productivity benefit.
> Aren't you worried that they'll work fine for 3 weeks then delete all your data when you hold them slightly different?
It might. It probably won't though. I don't see any code in it that deletes files. And, unlike BloatedShittyCommercialApp (and its cousin, BloatedDoEverythingOpenSourceApp), the code is going to be relatively small and if I do have doubts I can easily check to see what it's doing. I can build it quickly. I can patch it quickly. I don't have to file a bug to someone and beg him to look at it. I don't have to worry that the next release is going to break stuff I want and add stuff I don't want.
I recently moved my home theater PC from Kodi to a tiny bespoke vibed video player app, that basically just wraps libVLC with a minimal Android GUI. It's like 3000 lines of code total. I can practically keep the entire app in my head. If I need to fix something, it's 5 minutes in my dev terminal and then adb install. Ever tried to find and fix a bug in Kodi? The goddamn thing takes forever to even build, let alone debug. And that's even open source. I don't even have a remote chance of getting a bug fixed in professionally-built proprietary software.
The whole "real software" thing is a type of elitism that has existed in our field for a long time, and AI is the new battleground on which it is wielded.
> The secret is that it doesn't work.
I have 100% vibecoded software that I now use instead of commercial implementation that cost me almost 200 usd a month (tool for radiology dictation and report generation).
Wait, so you're a radiologist and you're using software you vibecoded to generate radiology reports for real patients? Is that, like, allowed?
Not saying it's right, but boy do I have stories about the code used in <insert any medical profession> healthcare applications. Not sure how "vibecoded" programming lines of code is any worse.
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Of course it’s allowed. It’s just kind of text editor but with support of speech to text and structured reports (e.g. when reporting spine if I say l3 bd it automatically inserts description of bulging disc in the correct place in the report). I then copy paste it to RIS so there’s absolutely nothing wrong or illegal in that.
Depends where in the world they are. Here in Hungary, it’s not uncommon to email your-family-doctor@gmail.com
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And yet I notice you haven't mentioned publishing it and undercutting the market. You could make a lot of money out-competing the existing option if what you produced was production-grade software. I'm guessing the actual case is that you only needed a small subset of the functionality of the paid software, and the LLM stitched together a rough unpolished proof-of-concept that handled your exact specific use case. Which is still great for you! But it's not the future of coding. The world still needs real engineers to make real software that is suitable for the needs of many, and this doesn't replace that.
>The world still needs real engineers to make real software that is suitable for the needs of many, and this doesn't replace that.
I think azan_ is demonstrating that shipping products 'suitable for the needs of many' is going to have to compete with 'slopping software for the needs of one'.
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It sounds like a medical device, in which case marketing it may require FDA approval or notification. Whereas vibe-coding a one-off tool for yourself might still require validation but you're the one taking the risk and accepting liability for it.
I think the thing you're missing is that the tool doesn't need to be marketed because someone else could ask their LLM to make them a similar tool but fitting their use case.
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Not everything has to be monetized, buddy. It's okay to relax.
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Vibe-coded radiology reports, finally the 21st century will get its own Therac-25 incident.
Yes I’m sure that text to speech with very nice fluff on top will have terrible consequences. It’s almost as bad as some radiologists using Word for writing reports which is not fda-approved (shocking I know!)
My partner is a radiologist and I'd love to hear more about what you built. The engineer in me is also curious how much this cost in credits?
It CAN be cheap.
I built a clinical pharmacist "pocket calculator" kinda app for a specific function. It was like $.60 in claude credits I think. Built with flutter + dart. It's a simple tool suite and I've only built out one of the tools so far.
Now to be fair, that $.60 session was just the coding. I did some brainstorming in chatgpt and generated good markdown files (claude.md, gemini.md, agents.md) before I started.
How much costs you renting vibecoding tools?
such tools cost 10-20/mo usually?
Using mystery vibe coded software in a tightly regulated, consequence-heavy environment, that’s so reassuring! /s
Is it _just_ speech-to-text, or god-forbid are you giving it scans and having it write reports for you too?
It’s text to speech with structured reports support. Jesus Christ stop with the moral panic already.
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no that's not true. I rarely now write a SINGLE line of code both at work or at home. Even simple config switches, I ask codex/gemini to do it.
You always have to review overall diff though and go back to agent with broader corrections to do.
> You always have to review overall diff though and go back to agent with broader corrections to do.
This thread is about vibe coding _without_ looking at the code.
Of course it works. I haven't looked at code for my internal development in months.
I don't know why people keep repeating this but it's wrong. It works.
It is fine to have criticisms of this, I have many, but saying that Yegge hasn't built real software is just not true.
Yegge obviously built real software in the past. He has not built real software wherein he never looked at the code, as he is now promoting.
Ok but this entire idea is very new. Its not an honest criticism to say no one has tried the new idea when they are actively doing it.
Honestly I don't get the hostility. Yegge is running an experiment. I don't think it will work, but it will be interesting and informative to watch.
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> saying that Yegge hasn't built real software is just not true
I mean... I feel like it's somewhat telling that his wikipedia page spends half its words on his abrasive communication style, and the only thing approximating a product mentioned is a (lost) Rails-on-Javascript port, and 25 years spent developing a MUD on the side.
Certainly one doesn't get to stay a staff-level engineer at Google without writing code - but in terms of real, shipping software, Yegge's resume is a bit light for his tenure in BigTech