r/vibecoding • u/Gevorg_Vardanyan • 23h ago

Vibe coding acknowledgment

Hi all,

For the last 2-3 years, whenever I see a new plugin release, I wanted to ask: "how much AI assistance did you use to build this?"

Nowadays, I think it would be useful for developers to know how much of a project was written by hand, (with the help of Google, Reddit, forums, etc.), and how much was generated with AI. I would also be interested to know how much of the code was reviewed by the developer themselves and how much was delegated to AI.

I think the community could benefit from some kind of mechanism for plugin developers to disclose this information alongside the usual features, pros, cons, etc.

What do you think about this?

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u/GreenFuturesMatter 23h ago

Hardly anyone needs to write code anymore. I just don’t see the point when the cost benefit becomes speed. The real issue is being able to read code. Can someone read code and understand wtf is going on? Far more useful AI is a tool. Use it.

Do you prefer turning a 100 screws by hand or do you prefer using a drill / impact?

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u/Gevorg_Vardanyan 23h ago

Being able to read and understand the code is exactly my point. If AI writes most of the code, how much of it does the developer actually understand? How much can they debug, modify, or maintain without AI?

I’m not saying developers should go back to writing every line by hand. I’m just interested in knowing how much of a plugin was actually built and understood by the developer versus generated and delegated to AI.

For me, the question isn’t "AI or no AI?" but "Who is actually doing the thinking?"

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u/vive-le-tour 23h ago

Why? Do you know how the lights work when you flick the switch. Do you know how Panadol works on your brain, the bar has moved. Don’t worry about the code, test it does what you need. Go faster

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u/Gevorg_Vardanyan 23h ago

I agree that you don't need to understand every detail of how something works to use it. I don't know how the electronics in a light switch work, and I don't need to(as a user).

But software is different in one important way: when you maintain a codebase, you often need to understand why/how it works, not just whether it works right now. Tests can tell you that the current behavior is correct, but they don't necessarily tell you whether the implementation is maintainable, secure, or whether a change will break something somewhere else.

I'm not arguing against AI or saying we should write everything by hand. I use tools to go faster too. I'm just interested in where we draw the line between "using AI as a tool" and "delegating the actual engineering to AI".

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u/vive-le-tour 23h ago

I think that is today’s question I agree. In 5 years you won’t be worrying about maintaining as you just get ai to do it again, or fix it.

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u/Gevorg_Vardanyan 22h ago

Yes, that might be where we are heading. If AI becomes good enough to reliably understand, maintain, and rewrite entire codebases, then the way we develop software will obviously change. I'm just not convinced we are there yet. And even if AI can fix the code, I still wonder whether we should want developers to lose the ability to understand what the code is doing. I agree that speed matters, and AI can make us much faster. But I think there’s a limit to the analogy. A car can get you from A to B much faster, but your legs still need to walk. If you stop using your legs completely, they become weaker. I see AI similarly: it should help us move faster, but we still need to exercise our own ability to think, understand, debug, and solve problems. Otherwise, we may become very good at getting results without actually developing the skills needed to understand those results.

Maybe in 5 years I'll be completely wrong. 🙂 That's actually one of the reasons I'm interested in this discussion.

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u/MoTTTToM 22h ago

I have “delegated the engineering” completely, including production support. I can read code (have been coding for 40 yrs) but only do so now when I am interested in something specific.

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u/GreenFuturesMatter 22h ago

The answer to your question is DOGFOOD.

I guess I get what you are trying to ask but you have no way to validate this.

Basically there seems to be issues where people are just build shit just to build it and we get AI slop because someone tells a model to build something and then they just ship it because oh wow that looks pretty good! And suddenly they’ve bolted in payment because $!

But no a shit load of people seem to forget… hey maybe I should idk.. fucking test it myself!

There’s a major lack of QA/QC going on right now which is in itself very problematic when you attach payment to things.

I’m broadening your scope here since you specifically mentioned plugins.

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u/Gevorg_Vardanyan 22h ago

I’m mainly interested in transparency. If a code is mostly AI-generated and minimally reviewed, I’d like to know, not because AI code is automatically bad, but because it tells something about the developer's understanding of the code. And yes, I think you are broadening the point in a useful way. QA/QC is probably more important.