Comment by avilay
6 hours ago
The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive. You can let the agent code and you review it, or vice versa. No different from being a team lead where you don’t write all the code, or even review each and every line of code, but you have a very firm grasp of the code base.
In theory, vibe coding and understanding don't have to be mutually exclusive, but in practice, I think that the people who have the discipline to actually maintain their understanding of a codebase are few. I've code reviewed things from people who claim they are reviewing what comes out of the LLM carefully, and talked to them about the code, and while they think they understand the code, they simply don't, which becomes abundantly clear when I try to explain the problems I find in the code.
on the contrary, reviewing LLM code and human code is very different. LLMs don't learn. if a human makes a mistake i can teach them to avoid that mistake in the future. if an LLM makes a mistake, all i can do is fix it over and over again. the dynamics are fundamentally different. some people may prefer to work with a machine, but i don't, i prefer to work with humans.
for me this is similar to the difference of using FOSS vs closed source software. if there is a problem on my linux machine, i can potentially fix it, on windows or mac i just can't.
both closed source software and working with LLMs make me feel helpless. whereas using FOSS or working with humans is empowering.
i get that not everyone feels that way, and that's fine. for my part i'll just stay away from LLM generated code.