I have never used an AI to code and don’t care about being able to do it to the point that I have disabled the buttons that Microsoft crammed into VS Code.
That said, I do think a better use of AI might be to prepare PRs in logical and reasonable sizes for submission that have coherent contextualization and scope. That way when some dingbat vibe codes their way into a circle jerk that simultaneously crashes from dual memory access and doxxes the entire user base, finding issues is easier to spread out and easier to educate them on why vibe coding is boneheaded.
I developed for the VFX industry and I see the whole vibe coding thing as akin to storyboards or previs. Those are fast and (often) sloppy representations of the final production which can be used to quickly communicate a concept without massive investment. I see the similarities in this, a vibe code job is sloppy, sometimes incomprehensible, but the finished product could give someone who knew what the fuck they are doing a springboard to write it correctly. So do what the film industry does: keep your previs guys in the basement, feed them occasionally, and tell them to go home when the real work starts. (No shade to previs/SB artists, it is a real craft and vital for the film industry as a whole. I am being flippant about you for commedic effect. Love you guys.)
I think this is great. I like hearing about your experience in the VFX industry since it’s unfamiliar to me as a web dev. The storyboard comparison is spot on. I like that people can drum up a “what if” at such a fast pace, but vibe coders need to be aware that it’s not a final product. You can spin it up, gauge what works and what doesn’t, and now you have feasibility with low overhead. There’s real value to that.
Edit: forgot to touch on your PR comment.
At work, we have an optional GitHub workflow that lets you call Claude in a PR and it will do its own assessment based on the instructions file we wrote for it. We stress that it’s not a final say and will make mistakes, but it’s been good in a pinch. I think if it misses 5 things but uncovers 1 bug, that’s still a win. I’ve definitely had “a-ha” moments with it where my dumb brain failed to properly handle a condition or something. Our company is good about using it responsibly and supplying as much context as we possibly can.
I like your previs analogy, because that’s how I’ve been thinking of it in my head without really knowing how to communicate it. It’s not very good at making a finished project, but it can be useful to demonstrate a direction to go in.
And actually, the one time I’ve felt I was able to use AI successfully was literally using it for previs; I had a specific idea of design I wanted for a logo, but didn’t know how to communicate it. So I created about a hundred AI iterations that eventually got close to what I wanted, handed that to my wife who is an actual artist, told her that was roughly what I was thinking about, and then she took the direction it was going in and made it an actual proper finished design. It saved us probably 15-20 iterations of going back and forth, and kept her from getting progressively more annoyed with me for saying “well… can you make it like that, but more so?”
I have never used an AI to code and don’t care about being able to do it to the point that I have disabled the buttons that Microsoft crammed into VS Code.
That said, I do think a better use of AI might be to prepare PRs in logical and reasonable sizes for submission that have coherent contextualization and scope. That way when some dingbat vibe codes their way into a circle jerk that simultaneously crashes from dual memory access and doxxes the entire user base, finding issues is easier to spread out and easier to educate them on why vibe coding is boneheaded.
I developed for the VFX industry and I see the whole vibe coding thing as akin to storyboards or previs. Those are fast and (often) sloppy representations of the final production which can be used to quickly communicate a concept without massive investment. I see the similarities in this, a vibe code job is sloppy, sometimes incomprehensible, but the finished product could give someone who knew what the fuck they are doing a springboard to write it correctly. So do what the film industry does: keep your previs guys in the basement, feed them occasionally, and tell them to go home when the real work starts. (No shade to previs/SB artists, it is a real craft and vital for the film industry as a whole. I am being flippant about you for commedic effect. Love you guys.)
I think this is great. I like hearing about your experience in the VFX industry since it’s unfamiliar to me as a web dev. The storyboard comparison is spot on. I like that people can drum up a “what if” at such a fast pace, but vibe coders need to be aware that it’s not a final product. You can spin it up, gauge what works and what doesn’t, and now you have feasibility with low overhead. There’s real value to that.
Edit: forgot to touch on your PR comment.
At work, we have an optional GitHub workflow that lets you call Claude in a PR and it will do its own assessment based on the instructions file we wrote for it. We stress that it’s not a final say and will make mistakes, but it’s been good in a pinch. I think if it misses 5 things but uncovers 1 bug, that’s still a win. I’ve definitely had “a-ha” moments with it where my dumb brain failed to properly handle a condition or something. Our company is good about using it responsibly and supplying as much context as we possibly can.
I like your previs analogy, because that’s how I’ve been thinking of it in my head without really knowing how to communicate it. It’s not very good at making a finished project, but it can be useful to demonstrate a direction to go in.
And actually, the one time I’ve felt I was able to use AI successfully was literally using it for previs; I had a specific idea of design I wanted for a logo, but didn’t know how to communicate it. So I created about a hundred AI iterations that eventually got close to what I wanted, handed that to my wife who is an actual artist, told her that was roughly what I was thinking about, and then she took the direction it was going in and made it an actual proper finished design. It saved us probably 15-20 iterations of going back and forth, and kept her from getting progressively more annoyed with me for saying “well… can you make it like that, but more so?”