drw85 (u/drw85) - Readit News

drw85 commented on After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand atmoio.substack.com/p/aft... · Posted by u/mobitar

jasondigitized · 13 days ago

Today. It produces mediocre code today. That is really it. What is the quality of that code compared to 1 year ago. What will it be in 1 year? Opus 6.5 is inevitable.

drw85 · 11 days ago

This is the problem with the LLM fallacy.

You think it'll rapidly get smarter, but it just recreates things from all the terrible code it was fed. Code and how it is written also rapidly changes these days and LLMs have some trouble drawing lines between versions of things and the changes within them.

Sure, they can compile and test things now, which might make the code work and able to run. The quality of it will be hard to increase without manually controlling and limiting the type of code it 'learns' from.

drw85 commented on After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand atmoio.substack.com/p/aft... · Posted by u/mobitar

threethirtytwo · 12 days ago

The industry cares about reasonable results not perfection.

If vibe coding delivers in one day, + an additional 2 days to solve stupid bugs, what you deliver with utter perfection in 3 months, then the industry doesn't give a shit about slop.

Is it maintainable? Well it's AI that's going to maintain it.

I think the future will turn into one where source code is like assembly code. Do you care about how your automated compiler system is spitting out assembly? Is the assembly code, neat and organized and maintainable? No. You don't care about assembly code. The industry is shifting in the direction where they don't care about ALL source code.

drw85 · 12 days ago

> Is it maintainable? Well it's AI that's going to maintain it.

That's what's currently not possible, it might work in a small webapp or similar. But in a large system, it absolutely falls apart when having to maintain it. Sure, it can fix a bug, but it doesn't understand the side effects it creates with the fix, yet.

Maybe in the future that will also be possible. I do agree with you about business/management not caring about long term impacts if short term gains are possible.

drw85 commented on After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand atmoio.substack.com/p/aft... · Posted by u/mobitar

GreenWatermelon · 12 days ago

Disagree. No plan survives first contact.

I can spend all the time I want inside my ivory tower, hatching out plans and architecture, but the moment I start hammering letters in the IDE my watertight plan suddenly looks like Swiss cheese: constraints and edge cases that weren't accounted for during planning, flows that turn out to be unfeasible without a clunky implementation, etc...

That's why Writing code has become my favorite method of planning. The code IS the spec, and English is woefully insufficient when it comes to precision.

This makes Agentic workflows even worse because you'll only your architectural flaws much much later down the process.

drw85 · 12 days ago

I also think this is why AI works okay-ish on tiny new greenfield webapps and absolutely doesn't on large legacy software.

You can't accurately plan every little detail in an existing codebase, because you'll only find out about all the edge cases and side effects when trying to work in it.

So, sure, you can plan what your feature is supposed to do, but your plan of how to do that will change the minute you start working in the codebase.

drw85 commented on Windows 11's Patch Tuesday nightmare gets worse windowscentral.com/micros... · Posted by u/01-_-

sensanaty · 12 days ago

Realistically, what's the threat to me if I don't patch Win10? I know in theory if there's some big vulnerability discovered my system would be in danger of getting pwned, but realistically what are the chances of that happening? And if it does, how likely am I to even be affected by it if I'm not doing anything crazy, I don't even do much banking on my PC other than the online shopping.

I think the more realistic danger is that software eventually stops supporting Win10, but I'm still playing XP and Vista games here, so even that seems far fetched.

drw85 · 12 days ago

Your computer could also be used as part of a botnet or to commit crimes from. Not all malware/viruses are used to directly steal from the target.

drw85 commented on Vibecoding #2 matklad.github.io/2026/01... · Posted by u/ibobev

anonymous908213 · 18 days ago

> Is it FOMO if for $100 a month you can build things that takes months

It is the very definition of FOMO if there is an entire cult of people telling you that for a year, and yet after a year of hearing about how "everything has changed", there is still not a single example of amazing vibe-coded software capable of replacing any of the real-world software people use on a daily basis. Meanwhile Microsoft is shipping more critical bugs and performance regressions in updates than ever while boasting about 40% of their code being LLM-generated. It is especially strange to cite "Windows as a great example" when 2025 was perhaps one of the worst years I can remember for Windows updates despite, or perhaps because of, LLM adoption.

drw85 · 18 days ago

For MS, it's currently eroding through every single one of their products.

Azure, Office, Visual Studio, VS Code, Windows are all shipping faster than ever, but so much stuff is unfinished, buggy, incompatible to existing things, etc.

drw85 commented on Vibecoding #2 matklad.github.io/2026/01... · Posted by u/ibobev

brokencode · 18 days ago

So using something once or twice is plenty to give it a fair shake?

How long did it take to learn how to use your first IDE effectively? Or git? Or basically any other tool that is the bedrock of software engineering.

AI fools people into thinking it should be really easy to get good results because the interface is so natural. And it can be for simple tasks. But for more complex tasks, you need to learn how to use it well.

drw85 · 18 days ago

It can also backfire and sometimes give you absolute made-up nonsense. Or waste your whole day moving in a circle around a problem.

drw85 commented on The percentage of Show HN posts is increasing, but their scores are decreasing snubi.net/posts/Show-HN/... · Posted by u/plastic041

detectivestory · 18 days ago

I don't disagree with what you are expressing but I think you are overgeneralising.

Sometimes the idea itself can be interesting. If AI is used to manifest the idea then so be it!

Secondly, I think it is almost unavoidable to use some ai generated content (code, design etc) when developing these days. Its just a tool and it can be used well or used poorly.

Lastly, I agree that there does exist a lot of what can truly be labelled "AI slop" where it is just lazy regurgitated content, and that is annoying.

drw85 · 18 days ago

I think there are a few people out there with great ideas, that might benefit from having access to tools to make these real. I'm all for those and would love to see them.

But i also think the majority of these cases will be bad ideas that don't need to be made at all. Or even ideas that are AI generated by asking a LLM for ideas. I don't care if they are made or not, but i would rather not have those on the internet and especially on 'show and tell' places like ShowHN etc.

I'm also not opposed to using AI as a tool in development or similar. But there are more and more examples of purely vibe-coded or generated things and those fall in a different category in my opinion.

drw85 commented on The percentage of Show HN posts is increasing, but their scores are decreasing snubi.net/posts/Show-HN/... · Posted by u/plastic041

Imustaskforhelp · 18 days ago

I do feel like its much more so the art of cooking than birdwatching (atleast imo)

Some people do want their food to be made by a chef sometimes even in front of them explaining them everything and the journey to them makes it worth it

For some people, it can be that the food that they buy from a shop nearby in front of them is good

For some, they want the cooking to be done out of their visible range and just want the food served

And the last categories probably the ones who will go to supermarkets to get some chips with 3 months expiry date created in a large factory

Hackernews to me feels like its 1 & 2 for me. What you describe as birdwatching is much rather only 1st category to me.

Like, in the 1st category people want to eat the special dish created by the trials of countless nights and passion

On the 2nd category, you are still witnessing a person but they are probably following a much more experience and in the start by say following tutorials or watching recipes. But they are much more democratized

I don't know, I don't go in hotels that much so I don't know the 1st part and how possible it is but I do go to 2nd category and I go around my local shops and see people make french fries and chat with them and ask how long have they been here and making french fries etc., they are willing to tell you everything.

I do feel like "AI slop" is kind of the 2nd category because like I am not only just interested in whether or not this recipe's entirely unique but I am rather interested in everything around it, what infrastructure choices they make and what coding tech stack they used & are they passionate about the project or what did they end up creating the prototype for.

the 3rd part is what I despise where think burger king or mcdonald etc. where the recipes come from franchise and everything comes and the person just serves you. All decisions are bland (think yet another nextjs app).

I don't think much of us want HN to be a supermarket or another macD but do we want this to be a cooking show where chefs build the whole recipes to serve us or do we want it to be a lot of neighbourly shops who have friendly people working who will chat with us and we can eat the french fries they make :)

(I love the french fries my neighbourhood makes, they are really spicy combine them with spring rolls and some drink or a good yogurt and it feels soo good lol, plus all of this costs less a 1$ or 2$ at most 3$ where I live, I can go and eat without worrying at all about the cost of eating outside usually if picked from the right shops)

Although I have never had the opportunity of seeing a chef cook his own dish in such sense but I can imagine that its great & I would like them as well but to me hackiness includes both, them hacking around with recipes to build something nice and the other hacking around with infrastructure like what logo and how close they are to me and even things like pricing imo.

I consider the latter to be like much more reachable than the former and to me I don't know how to explain but the idea of hackiness isn't just some clean final product, its also like just building something and gluing things and its messy too. And I love both of them both clean and messy hacking, I just want to know how much an human has been in the loop, where'd they get the idea and what they implemented in etc.

I don't know I live in a small city connected to a large city and I feel like I enjoy much more the messy aspects whereas people from large cities are much more likely to want to go to a large hotel for a dine or have a more artisanal taste.

So I have seen my fair share of people who want both.

Right now, I feel like it honestly depends on how large or small community you feel HN is.

If you consider HN to be too large aka you find it less likely to trust projects who get to here in the first place, you would want an artisanal person to build things for hand for you to enjoy

But if you consider HN to be small and there is just this idea of treating each person more individually and just this unwritten rule of law which generates more trust and faith in trying out new options even if they are hacky as long as I can sort of trust them decently and they are still involved in the loop and not completely 100% detached unlike say a large conglomerate franchise imo

Honestly I want HN to be a small place and not a large place but I feel like even HN is a large place for me but the problem with completely small places or building one's own is that you don't get visitors at all. We probably need something in between HN and no social media promotions (only via word of mouth) imo.

I have been trying to replace HN for quite a while now for something more nicher but still well connected place as well. Honestly have thought multiple times to create an HN alternative with the same UI and everything and same rules but just smaller and probably federated (ironically Gonna have it be vibe coded in single main.go golang :) hosting on a cheap recurring deal netcup server I got) but moderation of >0 people is hard and getting >0 people interested in a new website is hard as well which is precisely what the main post is about.

drw85 · 18 days ago

The point is the following:

If you want a chef to explain and show his recipe and then you find out he asked chat gpt or got it from a recipe website, would you still be interested in hearing about the 'journey' he took?

If that chef then also ordered the food from a catering service by forwarding that recipe to them, does it make sense to interview him about his craft and listen to him?

It's the same with creative things. Sure, you can ask a musician or a painter about their inspiration/process etc., because they went through the process and made something. You could learn something from them, other than 'here's how i asked someone else to make this'.

So, going to an art forum and displaying your AI generated art there, ready to answer questions about the process is pretty much completely pointless and also cheapens every actual artist that came there to display and talk about something they actually made.

It also has a psychological effect on the people that use it. I know some people that get immense feelings of accomplishment out of using AI to generate art and music. They feel like they made something and are proud about it. For a lot of people like that, any incentive to learn about things is gone, because they get the exact same feeling by using AI to make it.

On the other hand: If you are an artist making things and there are a million people generating things every 5 minutes and showing it around everywhere, it dilutes recognition of what you made. You show it to your friends and they're like: Oh yeah, i made like 5 of those yesterday.

drw85 commented on Show HN: I quit coding years ago. AI brought me back calquio.com/finance/compo... · Posted by u/ivcatcher

dangus · 20 days ago

Did you build a library?

If you did, did you put yourself in a clean room and forget about every existing library you’ve ever seen?

Have you made sure your code doesn’t repeat anything you’ve seen in a CS101 textbook? Is your hello world completely unique and non-identical to the one in the book?

When you write a song do you avoid using any chord progression that has been used by someone else?

LLMs are just doing a dumbed down version of human information processing. You can use one to make an app and tell it not to use any libraries. In fact, I’d argue that using an LLM negates the need for many libraries that mostly serve to save humans from repetitive hand-writing.

You can even tell AI to build a new library which essentially defeats your entire argument here. Are you trying to imply that LLMs can’t work at an assembly language level? I’m pretty sure they can because they’ve read every CS textbook you have and then some.

Will it be quality work? The answer to that question changes every day.

But the fact remains that you are indeed acting threatened. You’re not “correcting” me at all, because I didn’t claim that AI-assisted developers are doing anything in some kind of “pure” way.

My claim is that they’re seeing something they want to exist and they’re making it exist and putting it out there, while the vast majority of haters aren’t exactly out there contributing to much of anything in terms of “real software engineering.”

Imitation is a form of flattery. When something “copies” you and makes it better/cheaper/more customized, that’s a net gain. If AI is just a fancy copy machine, that functionality alone is a net benefit.

drw85 · 19 days ago

> My claim is that they’re seeing something they want to exist and they’re making it exist and putting it out there, while the vast majority of haters aren’t exactly out there contributing to much of anything in terms of “real software engineering.”

Except that they didn't. They thought of something and then asked a tool to make it badly. I know it's hard to separate for a lot of people and it makes them feel like they made something. It's especially bad when that thing then has stuff on it like "Made with attention to accuracy" or some similar marketing claim when there is zero accuracy and a bunch of mistakes in there.

But me running the cmd to create the Hello World angular example does not mean i made anything.

drw85 commented on Show HN: I quit coding years ago. AI brought me back calquio.com/finance/compo... · Posted by u/ivcatcher

ivcatcher · 21 days ago

You're right that this is simple compared to what real engineers build. I have a lot of respect for people like you who write things like custom math libraries for cross-CPU determinism — that's way beyond my level.

I'll keep learning and try to make this less of a toy over time. And hopefully I can bring what I've learned from years in investing into my next product to actually help people. Thanks for the perspective.

drw85 · 19 days ago

This response makes it 100% clear to me that this is just a bot. The verbatim use of a completely random thing like 'custom math libraries for cross-CPU determinism', combined with the agreeable tone and em dash use are pretty much a dead giveaway.

The internet has become so useless, everywhere is just marketing nonsense and bots.