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Comment by selectodude

3 days ago

You don’t. LLMs make vibe coding highly customized software that operates exactly as the user wants it super easy, which is awesome. However humans still haven’t caught up to the idea that it doesn’t need to go on GitHub because if it was useful to somebody, they’d have already vibe coded it themselves.

The only way to know if software does what is intended is to use it. IMO that's the real value of OSS: software that has been executed many times by many people in many different environments, which overall increases the trust in the correctness of the system(s).

  • > The only way to know if software does what is intended is to use it.

    No, testing and code audits also work.

    No amount of use of the software will tell you what else the software does beside what is intended (exfiltrate data, etc); testing and code audits both help with that.

    • Testing is not a replacement for use, but it can help exercise code to the extent that the author can predict how the software will be used. A significant source of test cases come from using code and finding defects. No amount of auditing or proactive testing replace real world use.

For every highly customized piece of software there are a thousand people who don't know they need it. This is the whole concept of software in the first place.

That's silly. Why waste time remaking what someone already built? What a bleak future

  • Because the hyper-tailored vibe coded browser front end that you like might be ever so slightly different from the hyper-tailored vibe coded browser front end that I want to use.

    • I don't want to put any effort into tailoring. I just want someone to figure out something that works. It's not like I can fix the internet itself, so what's the point?

  • You could search for “small lightweight browser with add blocking and minimal footprint” and find a few, evaluate them, and choose. Or you could use AI to build a “small lightweight browser with add blocking and minimal footprint.” And tweak it to be exactly what you want in maybe the same amount of time.