Post B6v595eFTUFaTPOmps by spacehobo@teh.entar.net
(DIR) More posts by spacehobo@teh.entar.net
(DIR) Post #B6v20XUGIjEULTxUe0 by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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a friend of mine who has been experimenting with so-called 'vibe coding' walked me through what he actually is doing. and it's not actually what i expected.but i am told that most 'vibe coders' do not use highly-structured design documents and written proofs as the initial input into the pipeline
(DIR) Post #B6v25J6PD81nBD4cYS by dysfun@social.treehouse.systems
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@ariadne the common thing is to get it to write specs and tests and then build it on the basis of them
(DIR) Post #B6v28CQoT9i7MKzwiO by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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i don't think i would want to write software that way, since i'm more of an experiential type of person, but i think i can at least understand it now
(DIR) Post #B6v2C5NGeL4Yd8C19E by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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@dysfun yeah, instead of doing that, they are providing the specs themselves instead of having an LLM generate a spec from a fuzzier prompt
(DIR) Post #B6v2K6rF1BMDY12TMu by dysfun@social.treehouse.systems
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@ariadne they're more likely to get convincing results doing it that way, but like i have had chatjippity repeatedly suggest data loss-inducing code at me this weekend on an algorithm i designed myself.
(DIR) Post #B6v2NGBsm6jZMVCD7A by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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@dysfun oh they are using claude
(DIR) Post #B6v2ZrWnmUWYdXzReS by dysfun@social.treehouse.systems
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@ariadne i'm told it's better, but... https://social.treehouse.systems/@dysfun/116669622500374568RT: https://social.treehouse.systems/users/dysfun/statuses/116669622500374568
(DIR) Post #B6v36soe0w5WBf569o by TheOneDoc@tech.lgbt
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@ariadne so they mostly use it to translate from a glorified, verbal representation of a flow chart into some programming language?
(DIR) Post #B6v36t13Go0qo8t0Uq by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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@TheOneDoc yeah he described it as the modern equivalent for UML -> C++ basically
(DIR) Post #B6v36t9YlAonEWrnl2 by TheOneDoc@tech.lgbt
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@ariadne that's what I've expected so you get all the disadvantages of no code + the inherent weaknessness of an LLM...
(DIR) Post #B6v36tNNvlsRvPKqJ6 by TheOneDoc@tech.lgbt
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@ariadne or, if I want to be evil, rapid development for pencil pushers.
(DIR) Post #B6v36tXJKroiQBylmK by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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@TheOneDoc i mean, it depends on if you're willing to fork out $$$ for access to the good models, i guess. but you still need very disciplined engineers to have success with this IMO. i hear about agents supervising other agents supervising other agents and i get anxious.
(DIR) Post #B6v3splwdJQueDgQCm by LunaDragofelis@void.lgbt
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@ariadne My employer is pro-AI (but not obnoxiously so) and pays for Github Copilot for their developers, allowing us to use it with our personal accounts too.Pretty much the only feature I use is autocomplete, and I don't use it to figure out what code to write, only to save myself the physical effort of typing out the code I was going to write anyway, if the LLM happened to guess something close enough to what I had in mind. Rarely I let it do simple but repetitive refactorings that when done manually, would require lots of separate copy/paste steps, and again I already have a specific end result in mind and reject the LLM's result if it doesn't match (small discrepancies are fixed by hand).I don't consider this to qualify as vibe coding.I don't ask it questions, I prefer to read the actual documentation, because that's more reliable (assuming the documentation has been written by a sentient creature). Thankfully, Java and Kotlin have a great structured documentation system (Javadoc/KDoc) with IDE integration showing the docs when mouseovering a name, and allowing to navigate to the library and JDK sources with a single middle click.I wouldn't have an issue with my employer cancelling the subscription when Copilot raises prices to a point where my employer doesn't want to pay for it anymore. I'm not depending on the LLM, I prefer keeping my skills sharp.Also for my personal project, #Kittyscript (my own all-purpose programming language under sporadic development), I stopped using Copilot entirely, and back when I used it I didn't vibe code either.
(DIR) Post #B6v3sq1XhJuTQaysW8 by hsza@social.tudbut.de
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@LunaDragofelis @ariadne if youre not depending on it, can you just stop using it completely. its more of an ethical issue than its worth, and its best to not skirt the slippery slope with it
(DIR) Post #B6v3sqDayVYE1ycVIu by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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@hsza @LunaDragofelis especially copilot lmfao
(DIR) Post #B6v4B9scbzlWDtXnKS by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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he thinks source code itself will be meaningless soon, i'm not sure if he means the code itself will be incomprehensible (i believe it) or that the specs and proofs become the effective source codeprobably both, i guess
(DIR) Post #B6v4MRqi8wAH8g29XE by dysfun@social.treehouse.systems
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@ariadne does he still check the generated code? he won't forever.the belief is that you just update your requirements and let the machine figure out how to make it happen. it's just a new version of "the prompt is the code"
(DIR) Post #B6v4TpN75Kco7VhyzI by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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@dysfun yes, i think that is the point he is making. by 'soon', he means within a few years, not like next month or whatever.
(DIR) Post #B6v4WsQsA6vsTtv9aS by dascandy@infosec.exchange
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@ariadne @TheOneDoc that sounds like what in finance or physics you'd call "over-leveraged".
(DIR) Post #B6v4a05IAWwR59Jesq by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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@dascandy @TheOneDoc or as an SRE would call it "a shitshow"
(DIR) Post #B6v4dLpXm3vzOXY1DM by icing@chaos.social
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@ariadne The dream where one no longer needs to *do* something. It is enough to *want* something.Back to being a toddler.đ€±
(DIR) Post #B6v4kKgIReonrFYFPs by dysfun@social.treehouse.systems
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@ariadne if you hadn't noticed a worrying trend, an awful lot of CEOs now believe that agents will find and fix bugs so quickly that it's okay to push bugs straight to live. and that if they aren't doing it now, they will soon.this is the slippery slope he's on. the next step is to stop checking the output.
(DIR) Post #B6v4nqcc9BP9mxVNwW by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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@dysfun i mean, personally i remain a no-code skeptic. they've been promising no-code-but-actually-good-we-mean-it-this-time since visual basic 6
(DIR) Post #B6v4sT8ksX3CPSk5kO by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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@dysfun i had a professor tell me "why are you learning how to code? it'll all be UML diagrams by the time you graduate"the academic CS attitude is... rather pedestrian at times, which is why I dropped out of CS
(DIR) Post #B6v4w27JICD1kylYg4 by dysfun@social.treehouse.systems
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@ariadne visual basic is not even close to 'no code'. aside from the awful language that it uses, it's really not a bad RAD environment though!
(DIR) Post #B6v4zD4yzUOwcoByts by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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@dysfun i loved visual basic 6, it was like the first programming language i learned entirely on my own
(DIR) Post #B6v52bl5gsrW2DVZgm by dysfun@social.treehouse.systems
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@ariadne academia is big. the group of academics i choose to talk to on fedi is small.
(DIR) Post #B6v563hcFhEnZPWoz2 by dysfun@social.treehouse.systems
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@ariadne it was my second, after qbasic. i did so much fucking cool stuff in vb6, it was great. it probably helps that it was my second programming language so i didn't realise how bad the actual language was.
(DIR) Post #B6v595eFTUFaTPOmps by spacehobo@teh.entar.net
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@ariadne They just won't give up on the unrealistic dream of UML diagramming.
(DIR) Post #B6v595nSvDcgvzi9Ca by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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@spacehobo yeah as soon as they basically said they were UMLing it but with words, it finally clicked for me
(DIR) Post #B6v5CB9jS9vIQMb7vU by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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@dysfun my parents taught me oldschool basic, i used to write fake BIOS programs which outputted more RAM than was actually there and put them in autoexec.bat in order to subliminally advertise the idea of buying more RAM to them
(DIR) Post #B6v5M5xFe8MVBkULM8 by xarvos@outerheaven.club
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wait so he wasnât even UMLing?@ariadne @spacehobo
(DIR) Post #B6v5M68wwdifm1xgae by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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@xarvos @spacehobo he was, but in the design doc. he basically gives it PDFs as input with explicitly what he wants and how it should look.
(DIR) Post #B6v5ShU11sahJnxmi0 by icing@chaos.social
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@dysfun @ariadne Learning things about you two that will be hard to forget...đ±
(DIR) Post #B6v5ShhqCTeM0gQpG4 by dysfun@social.treehouse.systems
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@icing @ariadne i'm coming round your house with a pair of programming socks and a copy of "the rust programming language" if you don't quickly get to the point where you realise we've had a lot of time to get better at computers"
(DIR) Post #B6v5ShspXcRMYlZbO4 by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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@dysfun @icing look if you are going to forcefem someone i can be in amsterdam later this month
(DIR) Post #B6v5ez6HM4N3QqiaVE by xarvos@outerheaven.club
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i donât believe this takes any less effort than just write the program yourselfâŠ@ariadne @spacehobo
(DIR) Post #B6v5ezRC6J6KTiVI6S by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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@xarvos @spacehobo i think it's more about shifting the work to the specification side than just saying "fuck it" and doing it, like i do
(DIR) Post #B6v5y1fW1vgytqHOFc by nrdufour@gardenstate.social
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@ariadne Hmm, no the exact reverse actually. Vibe-code works only if you put extra care on the design and especially on a document that will guide the rest of the process.Otherwise, you'll get a random output basically.
(DIR) Post #B6v61ImypjHYrmKiZM by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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@nrdufour that's what he is doing
(DIR) Post #B6v6SpawyAveQmpiJE by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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(to be clear, i am hardly a believer, but i do find this fascinating)
(DIR) Post #B6v6aiYN2AQ8uOO3g8 by whitequark@social.treehouse.systems
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@ariadne from a very radically different side of the debate, I think there's a modicum of merit in it, in that for a number of applications I don't look at the source, I load the binary straight into binja to see what it's actually doing. especially if you have debug information it can speed up certain tasks by a lot
(DIR) Post #B6v6eWjAwZI5OFG1Hk by dysfun@social.treehouse.systems
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@ariadne the psychologist part of you finds it fascinating, you mean?
(DIR) Post #B6v6kAPQptSfuMiC6S by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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@dysfun yes, of course, but it is an interesting thought exercise too. what is a world without meaningful source code?
(DIR) Post #B6v6nhM8nRxGxZr9sW by Gottox@chaos.social
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@ariadne A friend of mine once said "AI will be the ikea of computing" - And it made me think a lot.
(DIR) Post #B6v6qpxPH52GVKmetk by dysfun@social.treehouse.systems
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@ariadne it's a world where we reclassify source code as specifications.
(DIR) Post #B6v6ucbuq4TgGjXJWi by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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@dysfun that's just moving the goal post though, i want to fast forward to this singularity shit the grifters keep promising
(DIR) Post #B6v6xy6DOui5meIvzc by delta_vee@cosocial.ca
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@ariadne What I don't get is how they think a pile of markdown in the rough shape of a spec becomes a conformance test suite without going through the same process as the vibe code itself -- it's all pleading with the LLM to mark its own homework
(DIR) Post #B6v727DtQ8YZEssC8m by dysfun@social.treehouse.systems
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@ariadne the problem with that is that they don't actually understand the mechanics of programming very well. you don't have to think for very long to conclude it's impossible
(DIR) Post #B6v74XrnKbbMS4hBA0 by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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@delta_vee i pointed that out! i'm like, you're checking this shit, right?he was like "fuck yeah i am, i don't trust this shit"and then i was like "then why do you use it"
(DIR) Post #B6v7J3qVELKfgh0r68 by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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@dysfun i guess what i am saying is, if it's going to be slop all the way down, then can we get to the point where i can just order a cheeseburger by thinking it?
(DIR) Post #B6v7ZmyVD2tmHnjO2S by dysfun@social.treehouse.systems
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@ariadne if you want a cheeseburger, neural interfaces may get there. if you want code, lol, you know what it takes to write a good spec and that most people aren't up to it. even assuming it completely correctly understands your intent, we still have to assume they've eliminated all the subtle bugs it generates.
(DIR) Post #B6v7jXHAQsiOUb6ozI by ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
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@dysfun I just want to jack into the matrix and order a virtual cheeseburger like the grifters promise
(DIR) Post #B6v7spyKI3UH5FjQEC by dysfun@social.treehouse.systems
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@ariadne mm, i mean aside from the obvious "it has to actually get there first" thing, unfortunately that way seems to lead to you being one of "the poors" who can't afford a cheeseburger. we will both be bitches for jeff bezos or sam altman
(DIR) Post #B6vL0pSlMjRTE36pkG by colinstu@birdbutt.com
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@ariadne @dysfun âthis prompt couldâve been a cheeseburgerâ LLM commentary article coming right up
(DIR) Post #B6vMoNn6ch53ptojdQ by ska@social.treehouse.systems
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@Gottox @ariadne it goes in the square hole.
(DIR) Post #B6vakdEmeOIjwTrwSe by tknarr@mstdn.social
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@ariadne I suppose that could work, in theory if you have a complete and accurate specification it's mere mechanical transformation from that to source code in any sanely-designed language (Python would count, Intercal wouldn't). The problem is that "complete and accurate" bit, I know in practice that's pretty much impossible and even in theory there's serious questions about that.