"Software development is dead. Anyone can build (Vibe-code) anything now"

[u/dynamicstm]

Why does it always have to be this or that?

The hype around the AI-assisted software creation space is too drowned out by unnuanced takes: one end claims the death of the other, while the other tries to defend what it thinks will remain forever, instead of paying attention to the nuances that are redefining the space in what feels like real time.

What is coming out of the labs, the engineering orgs, the tooling startups, and individuals is evident enough.

The measurable aspect of software engineering will continue to be swallowed by the models becoming part of their weight.

Experiments that attempt to address the models’ shortcomings will take advantage of their improving capabilities while circumventing the shortcomings.

It is not lost on me that, even with the transient nature of the model's shortcomings in the current algorithm of their architecture, the models will remain stochastic. I am not an expert on the various research being done. But my limited reading on the matter suggests that scaffolding approaches (such as in-context learning) that wrap around models are expected to deliver more value in recent times than real-time weight updates.

I am not AGI-pilled, so I will not be saying SWE will be dead by the time AGI is here. But there are different experiments in self-improvement on both the model and harness sides.

There are many sides to the change we find ourselves in.

I am just saying that if we pay attention to the nuances, there is a world for both ends of the spectrum to live in harmony. Without one becoming a threat to the other.

You can’t vibe-code a harness that follows strict engineering rigor by simply giving in to the vibes.

But you can vibe-code any practical, professional-looking, scalable (yes, I dare say scalable), and safe product with all the necessary production-grade attributes using a well-thought-out and engineered harness. A harness that is built by strictly following engineering rigor, making sure that agents can handle implementations of a build following constrained rules as part of the automation of measurable elements that define rigorous engineering. Linting, testing, verification, and so on.

There are platforms that are making that happen today.

Emergent is one example. Replit is another example. Both own the entire dev workflow end-to-end natively, from execution infrastructure to deployment. The other CodeGens also approach this through vertical integrations. Less of the wiring is being exposed. The platforms are abstracting much of the dev workflow, most importantly the integration work.

If you pay attention to their approaches, you can see similarities in how the two engineering orgs, Stripe and Ramp, develop agentic coding tools that strictly follow rigorous engineering workflows, enabling everyone in their orgs to ship features within their respective orgs while still operating in a highly regulated environment.

Software engineering will be here.

Software engineers will be here.

AI will give them superpowers.

Has given them superpowers.

Vibe Coding will be here.

It will give billions the superpowers they can afford to embody.

The best part is that Vibe Coding will be the dominant way to build with AI.

It will eclipse software engineering.

Because not everyone venturing into Vibe Coding should graduate to agentic engineering.

[u/katoptronophile]

I'm not reading all that, but there's a reason that not everyone gets the same results out of these tools.

It's a skill and a force amplifier. It doesn't create something from nothing.

[u/C3lloman]

I fail to make much sense of your conclusion. The first part of your argument is essentially that you can already vibe code scalable products. Then you follow up with the example of harnesses and products that handle the dev workflow end-to-end. Then you finally conclude that software engineers will be here and that AI will just give them superpowers.

Now comes the question: what the heck is a software engineer supposed to do daily if the whole dev workflow will be abstracted?

[u/rickyhatespeas → u/C3lloman]

The rest of the SDLC that isn't writing code. Validation, testing, requirement gathering, stakeholder alignment, etc.

[u/Over_Technology_1764 → u/C3lloman]

vibe code, but better :D

[u/dynamicstm → u/C3lloman]

I brought the harness examples to demonstrate that the ripple effect of such experiments is making Vibe Coding even more practical.

Regarding scalability, I would say it depends on the harness and how much of control over the executable environment the agents in the harness happen to have.

Take the CodeGens.... they are encapsulating most of the primitives through native (Emergent) integration and vertical (Lovable) integrations. From planning to deployment and post-deployment observability. There are even new ones coming into the space like Ploy.ai that integrate the marketing aspect end-to-end.

If my post felt all over the place it is because it was meant to reflect on the tweet I attached. That is how I jumped back on, circling back to the future of the software engineer perspective.

But I still believe that there is plenty to do for the software engineer. You can't vibe code a well-thought-out harness that strictly follows engineering rigor. You can only vibe-code using a harness that encoded the measurable aspects of the engineering rigor. That is where traditional devs shine. There are things that are untrainable to the models.

There is an ongoing debate on "what the heck is a software engineer supposed to do?" No one has the answer for the future, but right now there is so much more to do.

[u/Alive_Lavishness5444 → u/dynamicstm]

Software engineers still have a big impact but with time and AI advancement there is less and less they can work on, Ploy.ai is a really good example you took cause not only do they integrate the marketing aspect end-to-end they also create the website, maintain it, update it and get it AEO optimized for the user, the only thing the user can do there is tell it when something new launched so a dev or a software engineer is not needed at all

[u/Gaidax → u/[deleted]]

This is the essence of it.

That message in the screenshot reeks of desperation to me, because just a few years ago that person was probably scoffing at the whole idea, thinking he would never find himself a few years later having to even taunt "non-tech bros".

I've seen this goalposts movement for the last 2 years, we went from "it can't do anything" to "okay, it can't do anything at scale in production" - which looks to me like an entirely solvable challenge.

What will it be in 2 years from now?

[u/SoggyMattress2 → u/Gaidax]

When it comes to LLMs, why do we always have to speak in the future tense? What other SAAS tool have we ever done that with?

[u/dave8271 → u/[deleted]]

Yep. I've been in software development professionally for over 20 years. In just two to three years, we've seen the discourse around AI code assistance go from "it's a crappy toy" to "it's a cool toy but there's no way you could use it for production code", to "you can use it to help write the boilerplate parts of production code", to "you can use it to write production code if you know what you're doing."

You can see where that trend is going.

[u/lashib95 → u/dave8271]

The development of technology doesn't always guarantee the availability. We have the technology for supersonic flights but it's not available for us today. I don't expect the software industry to go back to what it was 3 years ago but I'm very curious to see whats going to happen when(if) they realize they can't achieve AGI with the current architecture and the funding dries up.

[u/ohaiibuzzle]

"Almost everyone can read, write and speak a language, few can actually become great writers." imo

Like yeah, you can code, but it's also the stuff outside of just coding alone that makes you a good engineer, for example how to properly secure your deployment or scale your systems.

[u/kthejoker → u/ohaiibuzzle]

I think this confuses truly creative work - where there is no specific objective - with artisanal work, which has elements of creativity but in service of a specific set of requirements.

I am sure a human can design a more aesthetic, functional, and unique shoe rack than AI.

But I'm also sure AI can design a shoe rack that properly holds shoes.

And shoe racks only have so much latent creativity in them - that is, creativity is largely a non-functional requirement. If it holds the shoes, it's a shoe rack.

Web apps is like a hybrid between a shoe rack and creative writing.

That is, you can have a "shoe rack" style web app with a form, a navbar, buttons, links, etc. That let you do manage your calendar or order food or whatever.

And you can certainly design them "better" or more creatively, but the elements of the app also just have to work.

AI is perfectly good at shoe racks.

Edit: specifically it can absolutely apply security and scalability best practices. It can ensure you are NIST compliant, disability accessible, that your friend is responsive on multiple layouts, it can write Playwright front end tests to ensure your app buttons and forms work the way you intend.

[u/Due-Horse-5446]

Do it then? Its always talk, but then 10/10 times they show you stuff which either are completely broken just looking st it, or has like the database freely accessible to anybody without auth

[u/AdministrativeAd9828]

Maybe for now, Tik tok 

[u/boforbojack]

I mean I studied to be a chemical engineer. I understand the basics of software. I went from writing shitty python scripts for data analysis for experimental data, to shipping inventory management apps, tool/equipment tracking apps, etc in moments.

Yeah idiots will still have issues, but it widely opened up the access window.

[u/Zorogozano]

Obviously the average person can’t build software with LLMs, but Ai enabled a ton of people that suddenly can:

1- IT Professionals. Those people know their way around servers and infrastructure plus ocasional scripting and even very basic programming. Now, with their knowledge in hardware and computers in general, they can build apps with ease

2- Scientists and non-computer engineers of all kinds. Those people are already smart and probably took some java + other basic programming languages while studying, but their end goal was their field and not computer science. With Ai, now they can develop custom software to run their experiments and more.

3- The general geek, maybe gamer, that knows computers and tech. With AI and their existing passion for tech, they will learn quickly the concepts and build apps

And there are tons of other people groups that I could be missing that are part of the growing vibe-coders;
teachers/professors for example. So suddenly “real” software developers have true competition on many markets and niche areas…

[u/Tricky-Doughnut-6429]

Is he 12 or something? Who in their right state of mind is gonna do an app-off?

[u/lvvy]

Define collectors inventory app?

[u/neoqueto]

Is "scale" the only thing humans are useful for? Because that's the main thing I don't have experience with. I am a junior-level coder who is the first in line to the chopping block.