Discussion
vibe coding has become such a popular thing, even among programmers, because most people who write software never actually learned how to _engineer_ software
and to be fair, no one really knows how to do that. the skills and techniques were never really developed anywhere
there are a few places where the practices get closer to what one might call engineering, but even then it's rather unlike most engineering
NASA's methodology, for instance, is not comparable to any other form of engineering
there's a whole host of reasons for this absence in software, but one recent contributing factor in the rise of vibe coding, I believe, is the obsession with ~agile~
which is both widely misunderstood, widely misused, and widely pushed in industry
agile fits VERY WELL with vibe coding. they're made for each other. just crank stuff out in response to customer desires, don't worry about code quality, all that matters is what the customer's saying in feedback. if they cant see a problem, there is no problem
@beka_valentine Agile likes Vibe Coding? not so much, if agile means maintainable and comprehensible, reviewed for sanity and refactored to reduce complicated code.
tbf some of Agile(TM) repeatedly ships the prototype, but that's eventually self-limiting.
But given a high pressure hose extruding code, it helps to have a workflow that keeps it within bounds by generating in small slices with strong static analysis, careful review, and a suite of tests of correct and consistent behavior. Engineering sanity checks which we need now more than pre-LLM.
a lot of folx will point to tests as an example of engineering but anyone who knows anything about actual engineering knows that tests are quality control, as a practice of manufacturing, not engineering
engineering happens long before you test
imagine trying to design a mechanism, or a circuit, or a bridge and doing it by hunch and by test and nothing else
no calculations, no specifications, just make some hunch of a design, test it, then iterate
that's what people did before engineering developed historically
you dont know what works, you don't know why it works, you have a bunch of rules of thumb but no principles to guy your decisions, and no techniques to deploy on paper to arrive at conclusions
you make guesses and you check them
you may make those guesses based on years and years of experience, but there is little explicit knowledge that goes into design choices
engineers, by contrast, are highly skilled professionals who make active use of explicit knowledge backed by decades and centuries of science
this is not to insult programmers!
this is just to be honest and clear about the nature of professional programming
we are glorified hobbyists at best. we're hobbyists struggling with the fact that we are given responsibilities that we lack the skills for
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