[ok_dad]

I was a hand tool woodworker, but the first time I had to rip 56 6 foot boards into 7 strips I immediately purchased a table saw. Now I use hand tools rarely because I find the speed and quality of my cuts are better. I still use hand tools for things that require certain standards, but electric tools almost always produce better quality results.

It’s about the same for AI coding, I just get better results.

[globular-toast]

I think we have to be careful with such analogies. One does not have to have sweated for years with hand tools to understand what an accurate rip cut through ply looks like. On the other hand, if you just gave someone some rough cut wood and an electric sander, how would they even understand what that wood could look like having never used a good, sharp hand plane?

With AI coding we're talking about people producing abstract artifacts that most people do not understand and do not know how to test. These aren't just strips of board. They are little machines. So you shouldn't be asking whether you'd trust a table saw to cut your boards, you should be asking whether you'd trust someone who has never cut boards to build your table saw.

[ok_dad]

Everyone is talking about AI coding like only brainless idiots are using it. I’m a professional, I can judge and fix the clankers output. I don’t give a shit if some other idiot is using their tools right.

[krapp]

The vast majority of people using AI to code, even in production, are brainless idiots. Not knowing anything about the process and not needing to care is the entire draw of AI for most people regardless of the medium, and particularly for employers. Processes are moving to eliminate humans from the loop of AI production, not to require them.

People like you are an anomaly, not the norm. "I wrote an entire production quality SaaS without knowing what a function is" is the norm.

[ok_dad]

I don’t agree with the presentation, but the dead comment here has a point I agree with.

Most developers were shit before, and now they’re just faster at that shit.

AI isn’t the cause, it’s a tool being misused. Misused at a grand scale, indeed. I don’t care, that’s literally not my problem. I can’t do anything about it, so I don’t complain, I use the tool the way that helps me without producing garbage. I can only control myself and what I do with this tool, why would I get anxiety about what others are doing? Some guy is probably driving his car too fast and killing someone this instant, and vibe coding isn’t doing anything near as bad.

[globular-toast]

> Some guy is probably driving his car too fast and killing someone this instant, and vibe coding isn’t doing anything near as bad.

Yet. Cars probably didn't kill random members of the public in the first two years of existence either. Even after their obvious dangers were understood it would be decades before pollution and the effects of roads everywhere, urbanisation and sprawl would be understood. Even though the externalities are now acknowledged we still struggle to do anything about it, over a century later.

Is it too much to ask to learn from our mistakes and not let the same thing happen again and again?

[ok_dad]

What was the mistake? That cars were invented? You can’t control everything, you can’t put it back in the bottle. Do you think either of us have any control over the vibe coder type? They’re always going to be reaching for the easy button, whether that’s AI or something else.

[steve_adams_86]

Similar to wood working, sometimes I use the LLM rough out the concept quickly then refine it. The initial roughing looks awful and this seems to bother some people a lot. It’s fine for me because I still have the correct tools to pull it all together. It saves me immense amounts of time.

Another analog is using power tools to make jigs for hand tools. I’m constantly rigging up test or data wrangling harnesses to improve my ability to verify and refine solutions. It’s so ridiculously useful for improving outputs, even if it isn’t writing the code that makes it to production.

[officialchicken]

Your power tools run out of tokens and you have to open yet another online account to get around the daily sawing limits in order to finish the task today?

[steve_adams_86]

You can use qwen 3.5 for genuinely useful stuff without worrying about subscriptions and tokens. The 35b model works well on my Mac Studio and does all kinds of menial tasks so I can use my subscriptions for more important or complex things. I don’t think it’ll be long until models comparable to Sonnet today will run on my machine.

I have no idea what the frontier will look like in a few years but I don’t doubt local models like qwen will still be a staple of my workflows.

And for what it’s worth, there are people out there who lose their sawing ability because a safety brake totals their blade and needs to be replaced for something like $100. Sometimes we pay extra for features we value. We can always pull out the hand tools if we have to. In the mean time, make hay I guess.

[ok_dad]

I’m a professional so I don’t mind paying for tools.

[CaptainFever]

local models exist

[frizlab]

This makes no sense.

Your table saw does not randomly cut sideways because it “feels” like it. AI might.

[ok_dad]

You’d be surprised at the things table saws do when the wood has imperfections. I’ve had to buy new lumber when I fuck up a rip. Circular saws are maybe a better example because with both those and AI you need skills to use them properly.

[b112]

Is it? Isn't the inverse? The speed of your cuts is improved with AI a bit, but aren't the cuts all rough and need additional work? Isn't the quality less than what you would do by hand?

Because that's what every AI usage I've experienced has been.

Faster, yes. Useful, yes. Not better "finish".

[ok_dad]

Nah I get better results in the end with a clanker helping me. I specify down to interfaces and stuff, I only let the bot put the functional code in, then I review it. I find AI coding tools are a real benefit for me and my quality. Not so much speed, I would say a project takes at least the same amount of time, or more, than before I used AI tools. I can talk more about it if you’re curious, maybe I should record a session so people can see how you’re supposed to use AI coding agents.

[xigoi]

Does your saw require you to pay for each use?

[ok_dad]

Yea you gotta buy blades.

I spend more for wood and tools than I do tokens.

[archagon]

A table saw does not make decisions for you.

[ok_dad]

I don’t let AI either, I tell it what I want and it builds it to my exact specs. Not vibing, I specify the interface and what the functionality should be then I verify it. I just don’t have to press the keyboard. The result is what I’d have built, but it’s easier to polish because there’s a difference between thinking about code and thinking about architecture and functionality.

You guys are really not understanding the difference between a professional using AI tools properly and vibe coding.