[HN Gopher] The Brute Squad
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       The Brute Squad
        
       Author : tosh
       Score  : 20 points
       Date   : 2025-06-18 16:43 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (sourcegraph.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (sourcegraph.com)
        
       | treetalker wrote:
       | "I'm sorry, Inigo, I didn't mean to vibe it so hard."
       | 
       | But seriously: as an attorney, I find that this writing perfectly
       | reflects what I imagine it must be like to live inside the head
       | of someone who agentic-vibe-codes for a living. It's all over the
       | map; pulled (and pulling the reader) in a dozen different
       | directions; non-standard; mixing metaphors and idioms; likely 20x
       | longer than it ought to be; and almost able to figure out its own
       | point in the pastiche as it flails around.
       | 
       | I imagine that the coding results of the process described would
       | be similar. Would that be an accurate prediction?
        
         | ameliaquining wrote:
         | The author has been blogging about software development for I
         | think 20 years or so, and has long had a somewhat freewheeling
         | style. So I don't think this is attributable entirely to the
         | subject matter.
        
           | swah wrote:
           | I wonder if his writing got weaker this last decade, or just
           | the style got passe and isn't appreacited anymore? I remember
           | LOVING his essays and those last ones I kinda feel nothing.
           | Maybe its with me, I'm not feeling that much anymore.
           | 
           | Also, after explaining how society is moving at extraordinary
           | pace, you write a book, and don't even have a link yet? I
           | feel exactly like him though (old) but trying to join the
           | fun.
        
             | fatbird wrote:
             | His previous essays weren't sales pitches.
        
       | zzfs6 wrote:
       | The only thing I can really take away from this is that now
       | programming is basically gambling. And this is good why?
        
         | hackyhacky wrote:
         | It's not gambling. With gambling, the worst you can do is
         | bankrupt yourself.
         | 
         | Thanks to AI, we have the power to bankrupt an entire category
         | of laborer.
        
       | cantalopes wrote:
       | Tl;dr: it's an ad
        
         | swah wrote:
         | And a Steve Yegge essay...
        
       | Arainach wrote:
       | >Once you have tried coding agents, and figured out how to be
       | effective with them, you will never want to go back
       | 
       | Bullshit. I absolutely want to go back. I am so exhausted of
       | having to code review bullshit, of executives who think AI is
       | magic based on bullshit, of junior devs thinks they're incredible
       | because of bullshit proofread by hours of senior eng work - the
       | same juniors who will never grow into seniors due to overreliance
       | on bullshit.
       | 
       | I ABSOLUTELY want to go back.
        
       | pelagicAustral wrote:
       | The perfect punchline would have been that the book is vibe-
       | written.
        
       | throwanem wrote:
       | Yeah, I bet you never go back. Intermittent reinforcement is well
       | documented to produce that effect. I would say "wait till someone
       | notices the possibilities in what a compulsion loop you've set
       | yourself into here," but of course who has and hasn't noticed
       | that is mostly pretty easy to tell.
        
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       (page generated 2025-06-21 23:00 UTC)