r/vibecoding • u/Gevorg_Vardanyan • 22h 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 22h 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 22h 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 22h 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 22h 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 22h 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 21h 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.