[canada_dry]

This is what I've been doing for a couple years now: having AI help to code/test projects that I've had in my long TODO list but would never realistically started/completed. AI is now pretty capable of producing decent code if your specifications are decent.

I still think that non-programmers are going to have a tough time with vibe coding. Nuances and nomenclature in the language you are targeting and programming design principles in general help in actually getting AI to build something useful.

A simple example is knowing to tell AI that a window should be 'modal' or that null values should default to xyz.

[DisruptiveDave]

I completed three "micro apps" solely for myself (well, one for my wife and I) over the last month, all vibe coded. I sent two of them (sort of micro mindfulness tools) to a therapist friend. "WOW, I didn't know you could do all that!"

What I told her was, I, in fact, could not do all that. I'm a marketer who's been in software companies for 15 years. Zero coding ability. However, through repeated exposure to programmers, PMs, and designers - and because a major part of my role is to develop a nuanced understanding of how our products create value for users - I've learned how to think like a product designer and developer (albeit to a non-professional degree).

That's the part of the "anyone can now build software" sentiments that seems to be skipped over. Anyone can now have their ideas coded for them, but that doesn't automatically create the ability to make all the right decisions during the design and build process. It doesn't create thoughtfulness and consideration and the willingness to say "no" to a feature because, while it seems cool, it will detract from the core purpose of the overall tool.

[rustyhancock]

I've a similar history of AI use as you but every so often I simply describe what I want and try out what it creates. Honestly in these past 2 years the pace of improvement has been stunning.

Yesterday I was inside one of the tools that a just build it prompt created and I asked it to use a NewType pattern for some of the internals.

It wasn't until I was in bed that I thought why? If I'm never reading that code and the agent doesn't benefit from it? Why am I dragging my cognitive baggage into the code base?

Would a future lay vibe coder care what a New type pattern is? Why it helps? Who it helps?

I think the pedagogy of programming will change so that effective prompting will be more accessible.

[theobreuerweil]

I do think about this a lot. On the one hand, you might be right, and it may not matter at all. On the other, we often do that kind of stuff because it makes it harder to slip up by accident and/or makes the code easier to read and understand. These things are surely helpful to AI agents in the same way that they are useful to people?

I guess it depends on whether the extra time you could invest in that kind of thing pays back in terms of context windows, code quality or speed of AI code generation.

[reenorap]

"Make the window show up on top, you can't click away from it. Also clear all the fields when you first show the window."

[tempaccount5050]

"Ok, here's a static bar on the top of the page" as it disappears as you scroll. You can now no longer click anything else on the page. You said "can't click away" and it did show up on top. As a 30 year coder that never did any UI, this is this shit I run into constantly. I can create awesomely cool and fast back end stuff, and can create better UIs than I've ever been able to, but not knowing the nomenclature trips me up constantly.

[reenorap]

If you try it out, the prompt above correctly creates a modal dialog. LLMs are much much better than you give it credit for.