Anecdotally I’ve been using Claude to help me write a C# CLI tool from scratch. The more lines I let it write, the less and less I understand the code. Can I copy/paste it and it works? Probably 90% of the time. When I have to go and fix it, it is a huge burden.
When I prompt it to do one singular function, it’s amazing. That’s a clear and concise unit to understand.
But where real decisions need to be made by those with "skin in the game", LLMs are a disaster. Vibe coding quickly falls off a cliff. They create code architectures that no human would given the context, and as a result no human can feasibly understand or maintain them long term.
I would say this is boon to real software developers - tons of apps that need an expert to maintain, it's job security, right? Well, no. I suspect, rather than maintain these LLM-generated monstrosities, most organizations will just let them rot. That was the default in the golden age of zero-interest engineering, that's the default in the golden age of vibe coding too.
A startup founder uses AI to create an MVP
to
They secure funding based on the demo
to
They find themselves unable to move beyond that initial prototype
I have trouble believing tech investors throwing money towards a founder that shows a vibe coded product without anything else. The product might be vibe coded, BUT the founder show some traction or discovered a new market or something besides a demo. It does not really matter how a founder did the MVP, they did not create google. They just showed, through the MVP, something to investors. What happens next, after money, i doubt it's vibe coded.
i have no doubt, but this has nothing to do with the MVP being vibe coded or not - this has something to do with the (technical)experience of the founder + other personality traits
I can 100% see AI worsen and accelerate that kind of things.
And I would easily argue that it's harder to copy the behavior of a good software engineer than it is to copy the moves of a good chess players.
Not even talking about understanding the business logic you are actually implementing. Which LLM seems as far as understanding chess.
I wouldnt let it do anything on larger code bases, but building highly specialized services or components IS crazy efficient, when you question ever move.
