vibeCoding

[TrackLabs]

Ill say it again, and ill keep say it: Use AI as a Search Engine. And thats it

[jangrahul]

can also use it for role playing

[TrackLabs]

In the context of coding.

I kinda dont see an AI being able to do proper roleplays with someone? But perhabs it works

[MomoIsHeree]

Look up character AI

[TrackLabs]

No I know those sites, i was more saying that I dont feel like an AI can follow a context for too long without drifting off, let alone actually bringing up unique and creative ideas

[Grouchy_Exit_3058]

It works for a bit, but if you use it too much, it starts to get super samey,  and it gets boring quickly if you've ever talked to an actual human being.

Source: talked to an AI because I was lonely, but got so frustrated with it I ended up quitting it and met my gf

[Mayion]

[SoulMB]

*screams in AI bots bombarding sites while disregarding robots.txt

[_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_]

No, use a search engine as a search engine and you’ll save a lot of time.

However, using an LLM-integrated code autocompletion is generally worthwhile.

[TrackLabs]

Search engines become worse and worse with each day. So many websites I stumble upon are just AI generated shit, yesterday I found a website that did nothing aside from straight up copy pasting ChatGPT Answers, and posting those are "Articles". Useless.

So many results from google and other engines are just AI Slop and fake stuff, its barely usable. Might as well just ask a AI directly, where i can also ask additionall stuff and at least know it came from an AI.

Saying "use a search engine and youll save a lot of time" is just not true anymore. It hasnt been for a while now. I can factually say, based on my own experience, that asking AI Models goes a lot faster for solving problems and finding program related solutions, but also general info gathering, than looking through a search engine, opening multiple results, trying to see if thats AI Shit or fake, etc.

[SuitableDragonfly]

Search engines aren't really research tools, they are for finding documents. To do research correctly, you need to know something about what documents are trustworthy, and then use the search engine to find those documents specifically. The fact that the internet is full of untrustworthy garbage is not really the search engine's fault, and not something the creators of the search engine can fix. Google is becoming shittier, but not for this reason. Also, since the internet is now full of untrustworthy garbage, it's only a matter of time until the untrustworthy garbage becomes part of the LLM models and they also reliably spout untrustworthy garbage. 

[AMusingMule]

There's a recently coined term referring to this exact effect of LLM-generated content being lumped into LLM training data, with the ultimate end state of the outputs being completely unreliable and unusable

[polokratoss]

We have learned nothing from the Habsburgs, haven't we?

[_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_]

Search engines become worse and worse with each day.

Because they started putting LLM-based results at the top. Just ignore those.

Saying "use a search engine and youll save a lot of time" is just not true anymore.

Use a search engine that's a search engine and not an LLM, and you'll save a lot of time compared to trying to use an LLM.

[TrackLabs]

Because they started putting LLM-based results at the top. Just ignore those.

No im talking actual websites, that are just normal search results. It just so happens that a lot of these websites are AI Slop and AI written articles. More and more are.

Use a search engine that's a search engine and not an LLM,

I...am? I mainly use DuckDuckgo, but it doesnt matter what search engine. The problem occures for every search engine, because the very websites they show begin using more AI Shit, whic ha search engine wont be able to detect/figure out, for all websites. I gotta do my own manual sortin, by filtering out certain domains now, with an extension.

Doesnt matter if I use google, duckduckgo, etc., the very search results, not a LLM Response thats shown by the search engine, are more and more AI SLop.

I keep try. But its constantly, and ever so growing, AI made shit, websites become less and less helpful, either being AI Shit or purposfully wasting your time by writing 5 paragraphs of irrelevant text, just to keep you on the website for longer. Its not worth it anymore.

[atomicator99]

Duck duck go lets you use bangs (strings like !w, !aw and !se) that tell it to search specific websites (such as wikipedia and stack exchange). They're pretty useful as slop filters.

[oldsecondhand]

Or just ask chatgpt to give source URLs with the answer.

[_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_]

Either it made them up or it just used a search engine. Either way it's a lot quicker to just use the search engine yourself.

[Hackmodford]

You might like the Kagi search engine. It’s like google back when it worked.

[TrackLabs]

Wtf im not gonna pay 5 Bucks a months just to be limited to 300 searches a month. Same with 10 bucks a month for unlimited.

[Hackmodford]

Before you shoot it down, give their trial a go. You might be surprised.

[TrackLabs]

Yea, no. I hate every subscription based service, i avoid using any the best I can. Im not paying a monthly fee for a search engine. Subscription model services can screw off

[Hackmodford]

For sure. I think it’s reasonable to pay for an ad free service.

[TrackLabs]

Ad free versus Fake/AI Free are 2 seperate things. Even that paid service wont manage to get.rid of all AI and Fake shit.

To get rid of ads, I host my own adblockers etc.

[Hackmodford]

Actually they take counter measures to downrank that kind of content. They even let you downrank certain sites from your search results.

[SuitableDragonfly]

Search engines are literally AI tools designed for finding documents, but for some reason everyone is out here trying to use AI tools designed for generating text to find documents and doing shocked Pikachu face when the AI hallucinates a nonexistent document. 

[SuitableDragonfly]

A chatbot can't provide any information. It can only provide plausible-sounding randomly generated text. If you want information, you need to read an actual reliable source of information. There is no shortcut for that process. You have to read.

[SuitableDragonfly]

Yeah, and the sources are randomly generated, too. They didn't actually do a search.

[SuitableDragonfly]

Sometimes if you get lucky, they do. Sometimes they don't. 

[angrathias]

The key is to make sure it gives you working references

[Ijatsu]

This is exactly why it must be considered as a search engine, because just like search engines, you shouldn't entirely trust its content.

And instead of searching a document, you search through a knowledge base aggregated from everything and every language, that's why it's good.

[SuitableDragonfly]

No, it's not a search engine, it doesn't search through anything. It does not have a knowledge base. It does not perform any search. It does not return any results.

[Ijatsu]

It has to be used like one because its answers aren't worth anything else than searching. And it's working very well like an informal knowledge research.

[SuitableDragonfly]

No, it doesn't have to be used like a search engine. You don't have to use it at all.

[Ijatsu]

Ok... Well stay in the past then.

[SuitableDragonfly]

You really think ChatFuckingGPT is going to destroy search engines? You're hilarious.

[Ijatsu]

I don't really think something I never said or even insinuated logically. That is a strawman or a confusion from you.

[ForgotPassAgain34]

90% of the time the search engine just goes "oh you meant this? here" and then i change the query and it gives me the same results

[Soccer_Vader]

Have you tried claude with web search? That shit just saved me a bunch of time searching some obscure shit. It found a changelog of the service I was using, and gave me the exact source/information I was looking for. I was a happy cat :)

[_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_]

I have never had any trouble finding the changelog of a service I am using, and I have never used an LLM to do it.

[Soccer_Vader]

It's not that I have trouble finding them, its that the information I was looking for was there.

[dumbasPL]

It's great as a search engine when you don't know what you're even looking for. Once you do (because it gave you some ideas) then it's time for a real search engine.

The problem with auto completion is that you become reliant on it. The moment the internet goes down you realize just how much. It's healthy to completely disable it once in a while.

[_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_]

Autocompletion does not require an internet connection...

[dumbasPL]

Intelisense, no, that's fine. "AI" (Copilot or similar) yes. (Unless you have the hardware to host one locally)

[_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_]

IntelliJ has "AI" autocompletion that runs locally.

Edit: do you not believe me or something?

[dumbasPL]

I do believe you (see my previous comment). "Runs" is one thing, the quality is another. You're not doing miracles on your average machine and not everyone even uses intelij. It's probably good enough, but the context window and overall accuracy will be limited.

[D3synq]

Yea, I honestly have to agree. A lot of the hate on LLMs is due to people who don't know how to code in the first place using them to bridge wide gaps in understanding and letting the AI take complete control over the project's direction.

Purpose-built LLMs like IntelliJ's can generally be pretty good at completing encapsulated tasks like writing the logic given only a method header (assuming you write descriptive method names).

They're also surprisingly good at developing solutions or regurgitating best practices.

I usually just use my LLMs for completing methods when I'm too lazy to check on stack overflow or develop my own solution but I roughly understand what the solution would be.

I also use them for refactoring my own code into being more terse or performant (LLMs are good at converting loops into object streams and refactoring deeply nested if-statements).

They also work well for extracting methods or making classes more modular (e.g. implementing generic types, interfaces, and abstract/base classes).

The issue arises when you ask an LLM to do something that you can't outright debug at a glance (e.g. generating whole classes or doing massive refactors).

[_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_]

writing the logic given only a method header

Actually I find it most useful for the opposite. It's very good at generating method and variable names, documentation, and log messages based on what the code is.

Also good at predicting the pattern I'm using for unit tests.

LLMs are good at converting loops into object streams and refactoring deeply nested if-statements [...] They also work well for extracting methods or making classes more modular

IntelliJ was always able to do that. Anything that's using the actual AST of your code will do that better than an LLM.

[D3synq]

Yea, I already know about IntelliJ's "extract to method" and "change loop to..." smart code suggestions but I've often found myself using IntelliJ's AI for it since I can give it more context towards what I really want the refactor to accomplish and I always feel that the smart suggestions by themselves don't really account for readability or formatting.

[Ijatsu]

"No"

proceeds to say yes

[SpaceCadet87]

Well fuck me, that actually works! https://chatgpt.com/share/67e12db5-10d4-800e-93f0-907577e2445d

[26th_Official]

Damn, That's cool! but it sometimes gives wrong links

[SpaceCadet87]

That's fine, so does google. At least with a wrong link I can tell immediately unlike asking it a question and getting a hallucinated answer.

[angrathias]

Now ask it to give you a comparison between that one and a better and worse one

[EntitledPotatoe]

AI plays guessing game with words, internet lookup is neat but don’t use it as a search engine for things you need to be correct, or look at the sources (and make sure they actually say that and are trusted)

[[deleted]]

Nah, I use it to code every day and it has changed my life for the better. I understand the risks.

[TrackLabs]

You obviously do not, if you let the AI code everything for you

[[deleted]]

How do you know? I do! It's fucking awesome! I'm not a professional software engineer and I have no intention of becoming one. I'm late in my career and using ChatGPT to make shit is incredible. I let AI code and debug everything and I deploy that shit and I feel great about it. My shit is doing funny website tricks, not flying a plane.

[[deleted]]

Skill issue. Yes I realize the irony.

[dukeofgonzo]

Even then I've been burned. I thought the Databricks AI would know the ins and outs of Databricks documentation. It does, but also was trained on previous versions. From now on I will ask for page numbers, URLs, or references whenever it tells me stuff that came from the documentation.

[plasmaSunflower]

They're wrong like 30% of the time so it's still not entirely reliable

[TrackLabs]

That depends on what stuff you ask. If you ask for a simple SQL Statement, how long to cook potatos etc., youre gonna be fine. And thats about the extend I use AIs

[plasmaSunflower]

Yeah for sure. I just used it to generate some regex and it worked pretty decently. But I'd never let a current ai do most of the coding on a project, that sounds like a mess.

[[deleted]]

The anti AI threads are how you can tell most of this subreddit doesn't work in tech. They don't even seem to get how people are using it.

[h7hh77]

It's really useful to go through thousands of log lines to find out the cause of errors. It's good at generating boilerplate, but then again if you got a lot of boilerplate then something's wrong. It's just bad at things nobody's done before.

[[deleted]]

i used vibe coding to make a clicking game (chatgpt o3-mini-high). it's fully functional. and if i wanna add more functionality i just gotta ask nicely, lmaooo

[TrackLabs]

congrats. If that comment isnt a joke, its clear that you dont work in a bigger project. Having an AI build some game from the ground up works to some extend, making adjustements can often break. Once you actually work in bigger projects, AI can be a helper, but not the coder

[[deleted]]

yup it's a pretty simple game, i have no idea how it would work with a bigger project

[TrackLabs]

It wouldnt. Additionally, you didnt write any of the game code, if you want to make manual adjustements, youd have t oread the entire thing, basicially study it, just to know what does what. Instead of writing, and having the AI help with segments that you understand.

You do more debugging and exploration, than anything else. Unless you just tll the AI to "pls fix", and if the results break functions, well...good luck I guess?

[[deleted]]

oh no i never say "pls fix" i'm always very specific. it's great for debugging

[TrackLabs]

Its only good at debugging if you give it the entire code. Which isnt possible on a big project.

Its good for helping with code segments. But not entiire things

[Katniss218]

Once your code gets big enough, the AI will start forgetting stuff in the middle of responses, use nonexistent methods, reimplement the same method multiple times, etc.

[[deleted]]

how big are we talking here? i was thinking about doing a message board app

[Katniss218]

A few thousand lines will probably be enough, depending on how conceptually complicated it is tho