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points by tmpz22 2 days ago | 0 comments

Is the average web developer benefitting from vibing languages they are not at all fluent with?

A bit like a translator who doesnt speak the language but has Google translate and a few beers in them right?

For example, is there still a massive .clone() problem in LLM generated Rust?

I re-wrote one of my apps in Swift. I don't know Swift. It's been fun. When it gets stuck I look at the code; I have it teach me via analogy to the e.g. mobx/react concepts I do know. In some cases I've improved the LLMs code after learning how something works. In others I work it more like an informed PM - ok the sidebar opening is slow but... its about 10x faster in my electron version. How is the sidebar "mounted" or rendered? I dump tricks I know from web dev and ask how analogues; sometimes that breaks its anti-patterns. Other times I throw constraints I don't know much about - "This is a native version, can we aim to make it 3x faster to start-up? How".

Personally I was surprised how quickly I surpassed my original code, feature wise. Will it stand the test of time? Too early to tell - need to see if I'm still using the native version of the app in a year. But its been more fun and informative - and fast - than I'd expected.

[–] arecsu 2 days ago

This is the way. I don't know why it's hard for other people to figure out this process.

[–] tmpz22 2 days ago

Right fun is great but I'm speaking from a professional context. Examples should be production code at legitimate businesses.

For what it's worth I wholly agree with your point and that mirrors the personal project I have. But making personal projects a bit more fun and fluent is not the $10T proposition being championed at the professional level.

[–] mahboi 2 days ago

Web devs already barely understood their tools. CSS was the closest thing to vibecoding before AI could write code.

[–] nozzlegear 2 days ago

You're painting with a very wide brush.