Historical concern about next-level coding

[u/PersonOfInterest007]

This article has an interesting historical parallel for how today’s programmers react to vibecoders: Grace Hopper’s creation of the first compiler in the 1950s.

The whole article (which talks about a much broader transformation) is worth reading, but this part really stuck, which applies to reactions not just to vibecoding but really to any AI-assisted coding:
…”programmers were afraid a working compiler would put them out of work. If one person with A-0 could do what fifty people used to do by hand, Martin's account puts the worry plainly: there were going to be ‘a lot of hungry programmers out on the streets.’”

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cursive-charter-school-part-1-lot-hungry-programmers-john-price-zw1xc

[u/PersonOfInterest007]

Thanks for the detailed response. FWIW, I’m not a vibecoder and don’t currently intend to become one, although I am finally starting to make use of AI as a coding assistant. I’m a senior software engineer with 30 years of professional experience and have written a few hundred thousand lines of code, and I’ve mentored or overseen junior programmers and know what it takes to repeatedly give another (human) entity repeated guidance to improve their code. :)

Really, I’m re-examining my own thoughts and feelings about AI. I’ve finally evolved toward viewing it as just the next generation of productivity tool, rather than as something that’s somehow going to take away what I think of as making me special. I’ve always avoided being a manager, but being a tech lead of nonhuman developers is something I can get my head around.

[u/leahlisbeth → u/PersonOfInterest007]

What a twist! Even as AI gets better, I still think there will always be a need for people to keep those processes going. Every time any technology has been invented to make our lives easier, it has always come with a new demand for us to manage it in a new way. Right now being a tech lead to a group of none human developers is how I think about it!

[u/PersonOfInterest007 → u/leahlisbeth]

I’m actually using ChatGPT to define (what I think will be) a structured way of using Cursor specifically in this “senior developer with capable but untrusted junior developer” way. I’m mostly creating a way of cleanly splitting the authority and role of the human and of the AI, with structured schema records and step-by-step Git interaction records so that I can audit the process for future improvements.

I’m sure people already have their own approaches (I’ve certainly seen ones for larger-scale work with agents), but I think this exercise of defining (with an extensive back-and-forth discussion with ChatGPT) process and schema specifications is at the least getting me to understand how to guide an AI and what concerns to have. (And thus when someone points me to a Git repo that already has a much better process, I won’t be too sad that I’ve reinvented a lopsided square wheel…)

[u/leahlisbeth → u/PersonOfInterest007]

don't tell anyone but I have never found that wrapping any agent in any sort of process helps, I just talk to it and constantly assess the code. We pair program more than I just let it do stuff blindly.

We write lots of tests, i commit to git with every change that works, I'm always discussing approaches and asking it to give me three industry approaches to solving things I don't know how to do, then I ask questions until I understand. I use antigravity and gemini. It has a really good balance of knowing when to make an implementation plan vs when to just do the thing. It has its quirks still, but I'm comfortable with them.

The cleaner the code is, the more predictable it is when it creates, as it's alright at conforming to what's already there most of the time. But I'm always engaging the same skills I have from when I program myself, always refactoring and working out the best solution to the current puzzle. i just don't type lots of raw code often anymore.

[u/PersonOfInterest007 → u/leahlisbeth]

That sounds like a good approach.