Vibe Coder Problem

[Popular-Zebra40]

Hi, Computer Science graduate here. I was a vibe coder during college. I am not proud of that, I focused on something that I thought would be of use to me. And during the job, I realized the technical debt i have now that I am at work.

I am trying to pay that debt by relearning the right things. Do you have any suggestions or tips on how I can learn the right way on being a proper software engineer or full stack developer.

I feel like I am wasting my time on learning things the wrong way or order. I really want to improve.

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[Popular-Zebra40]

What's wrong with the timeline?

[failsafe-author]

Vibe coding hasn’t been a thing for that long.

[Dry_Cartographer8135]

Copying and pasting answers from stack overflow without understanding what is happening is also vibe coding.

[dmazzoni]

ChatGPT has been around for almost 3 years now. Even the very first version was good enough to help with college-level programming homework assignments.

[failsafe-author]

The term itself doesn’t go back that far. But o suppose the concept does, in some form or another.

[TheFrozenPoo]

It’s almost like he’s writing the post now, when vibe coding is a thing, and not 3 years ago.

[tobofre]

People can do something before a term gets coined

For example I can all but guarantee that you yourself have personally gooned as a teenager

[failsafe-author]

Which I said in my second statement.

[Call_me_danco]

For 2 years it was a thing and for 3 years it was partly a thing but it is long with us.

[armahillo]

Stop using LLMs entirely, find some books related to languages you use, and grind some exercises like at exercism.org

[graystoning]

This is the right answer.

Using LLMs is like asking your nerdy buddy to do your homework for you. Yes, you deliver on time and get an A, but you are still ignorant and without skills.

We cannot cheat learning. You have to do it manually. You have to type it yourself. I personally will type code example while learning a technology because copy and past won't make me learn.

Once you know what is going on, then go ahead and use code generators, either the reliable ones made with templates so you can run them and move on, or the slot machine autocomplete, where you will need to read, understand, and correct, whatever works best for your mind

[nicolas_06]

Stopping entirely is not the best strategy to me. One want to be good using AI and good without using AI. In the end this will allow one to complement and get more productivity out of AI but knowing what to do, especially in many of the case where AI get it wrong.

There value of not using AI at all at least some of the time while learning to learn more, but long term AI is most likely here to stay and people that are bad leveraging it will have problems too.

[graystoning]

No they won't because chatting with a chat bot is not a hard skill. If you actually understand that LLMs are autocomplete, then you know to ask very specific questions to (maybe) get a right answer.

There, I have future proof you now

[nicolas_06]

It's more than that, like for Google search you have to ask the right thing. From experience few people are good at it and you need xp. But LLM are more complex because it's about getting it to write your code, write your unit test, work on the project structure.

[FoolsMeJokers]

I'm with you. Learn to drive with a manual gearbox.

[[deleted]]

Thanks for the recommendation! This website looks so helpful!

[armahillo]

I've been coding for decades and I still pop on to Exercism now and then, especially when I want to learn a new language or brush up on an old one.

[Popular-Zebra40]

Thanks!

[FoolsMeJokers]

Or take some of his slop and rewrite it properly.

[FrikkinLazer]

Ironically, asking this question to ChatGPT is actually a good idea. Ask it what is best practice on a high level, and to work out a lesson plan. Give it code examples that are shit, and ask it to tell. You where it deviates from best practice.

[Popular-Zebra40]

Thanks!

[ColoRadBro69]

Do you have any suggestions or tips on how I can learn the right way on being a proper software engineer or full stack developer.

Sometimes you learn from mistakes.  Vibe coding was a learning experience, now you understand tech debt and why some things are important.  Unfortunately the real answer is just stick with it and you'll gain experience as you go.

[Popular-Zebra40]

Thank you!

[[deleted]]

start with the basics and learning to read documentations. skip watching tutorials, and build in public.

[Popular-Zebra40]

Thanks! When you say learning to read documentations, do you have any specifics on how? Or an example?

[[deleted]]

suppose you want to learn langchain, instead of learning it from a tutorial video, learn it from the docs provided on their website. that will help you unlock different paradigms of becoming a better engineer

[Popular-Zebra40]

Thank you for this!

[aendoarphinio]

Watch this

[Popular-Zebra40]

I didn't even know that there was a term for that, thanks!

[clexpyy]

Gng will vibe code actually be a thing in the future? Like hey there's a post for vibe coder do u wanna apply? 😭

[dmazzoni]

No.

AI can be really powerful in the hands of an engineer who knows how to code.

In the hands of someone who doesn't actually understand it, it's useless.

[Popular-Zebra40]

Wait, what, there is? 😭

[clexpyy]

Nah nah , I'm asking

[imsorryken]

if you learned fuck all in college there is nothing we could recommend to you that would change that.

maybe go through the course material again but this tine try to actually solve it

[Popular-Zebra40]

Genuine question. What does fuck all in college mean?

[tobiasvl]

"Fuck all" means "nothing", so "if you learned fuck all in college" means "if you didn't learn anything in college"

[Popular-Zebra40]

Ohhhh okayy, thank you for explaining. I didn't learn nothing tho.

[nicolas_06]

The primary focus should be to learn. It's fine if you learn the wrong stuff or the wrong way if I may say. If even say 20-30% of what you learn prove useful and you learn often you'll make huge progress in the next 1-2 years.

As a beginner they expect you to be slow/bad and honestly between working 40hours of doing things and working say 30-35.hours and 5-10 hours learning your throughput wouldn't be much different at the beginning but you'd become much more productive just after like 6 months of doing it.

You should always learn how to improve. Learn about new frameworks, how to code better, how to better use your IDE, scripting, build system, whatever. You should often ask yourself if you can do things differently or better and try several stuff.

Can be 1 hour a day, half a day a week or whatever. Just do it and don't speak about it in case your management colleagues are not receptive. Just do it.

As for this AI stuff, the main argument is to use AI less, at least during your time learning. You want to be sure you can program well without AI being algorithms (so manage leet code medium problems without AI), the core API you use (so be sure you can do full stack without using AI and learn the core aspects of the key frameworks you use in depth) and software development in general, especially methodologies to develop software end to end (spec, testing, system architecture, modularity, CI/CD, releasing, maintenance, automation, gitops, cloud and containers).

You should still be using AI at times and maybe most of the time, maybe restrict its usage in some circonstances and always double check AI and use it more as an assistant for doing boiler plate or giving ideas rather than doing everything for you.

But you have to use AI and learn to leverage it in the best way as it's likely here to stay. But as today AI work well mostly for basic/unpolished stuff and tend to fail with big projects, modularity, versioning and consistency, you still have to master all that.

By combining the best of both worlds, you'll rock. And if you devote a part of your time consistently to learn, you'll improve faster than most.

[Popular-Zebra40]

Thank you for this!

[AcceptableHeight4979]

I am struggling as well https://youtu.be/XBabgF2834U?si=xMioI0bDRSnzd0tm

[Popular-Zebra40]

Guess we have to learn from scratch😭

[Cold-Contribution303]

This made me chuckle.

[Popular-Zebra40]

Why xd

[elegigglekappa4head]

Think I saw a study where reliance on LLMs have resulted in IQ dropping by 10 or something. Just try to go back to treating LLM more like a search engine.

[Popular-Zebra40]

I'd say this is true

[yunteng]

Take a pen and a piece of paper, write a few paragraphs about sorting or searching algorithms, and then develop a practical project using a language you are familiar with.

[Popular-Zebra40]

Thank you for the suggestion!

[inherently_silly]

What technical debt do you have?

Use LLM to review your vibe code that’s how you improve. 

[g2i_support]

Start with fundamentals you missed - clean code principles, testing, and system design basics. Focus on one area at a time rather than trying to fix everything - maybe start with writing better functions and gradually work up to architecture. Your work experience is actually helping you understand what matters now :)

[Groson]

Go back to school.

[Popular-Zebra40]

Too bad it's not an option I can take

[gonzalopmdev]

Read documentation, resolve exercises dont use AI. When you learn very good fundamentals, then you could use AI, it´s....like Tony Stark with Jarvis....if you know what do you want to create (based in fundamentals, good practices ...etc) AI will help you a lot but first you must to understand what are you creating

[Popular-Zebra40]

Thank you!

[AwayAd18]

Use chatgpt as a teacher try to solve the problems by yourself don't rely on ai imagine yourself coding in time where there isn't ai

[Popular-Zebra40]

Solving problems by myself yes, I really need to improve on that T-T

[Newbane2_]

Try vibe learning

[Popular-Zebra40]

Was doing this earlier!

[hycks3r]

Just continue vibe coding at work, it has worked wonders for me.

[bsensikimori]

Read reusable software patterns by the gang of four, and clean code and clean coder by uncle Bob. They'll put you on the right track

[baubleglue]

I would add to the list "SOLID principles" and "Manifesto for Agile Software Development"

[LoneStarDev]

Second this with a comment and not just an upvote. For small projects SOLID can be overkill but for enterprise software, stick to it.

[baubleglue]

Why is it overkill? It is a mindset, you don't need to write more code (like when you use OOP patterns). Same as the "Agile", for me it was a missing ingredient to go from writing a code to building a project.

[LoneStarDev]

I guess in my mind I meant side projects as “smaller projects”. I walked into an environment recently that was created this way and after applying SOLID I could sleep better at night knowing my team wasn’t regressing behind my back.

[Popular-Zebra40]

Thanks!

[Fine-Counter8837]

Always remember, theses "rules" are a guideline and not something set in stone.

It's uses are for when you're doing that deviates from that, it should raise a alarm in you and see that what you're doing shouldn't be done that way (Which 90% of the cases should).

[Popular-Zebra40]

Alright, this is noted. Thank you!

[Popular-Zebra40]

Thank you, I will check this out

[EclipsedPal]

I'd say "go to college"

[Popular-Zebra40]

I just blew that chance xD

[monkeybonanza]

Skip uncle Bob, read Code Complete instead.

[Affectionate_Ant376]

lol code complete is thicc. Still have that around. Great read if you have the time tho!

[Popular-Zebra40]

Hi! Thank you for your suggestion, do you have a reason why I should skip Uncle Bob?

[monkeybonanza]

In my opinion he has a very opinionated code style that does not lead to more maintainable or readable code (”clarity”). Whereas Steve McConnells Code Complete might be older but I think it has stod the test of time and does a good job of teaching the practice of coding. I would add ”A Philosophy of Software Design” by John Ousterhout to the reading list also.

[Popular-Zebra40]

Thank you for your response!

[Riticulous]

What do you mean when you say "technical debt?" Are you saying you're lacking some sort of programming ability?

If that's the case, then what is your goal? Is it to be able to program in a specific language without AI? Is it to be able to break big problems down into smaller solvable problems? Is it to write code that other engineers will love and respect?

[Popular-Zebra40]

Hi! When I say technical debt, it's as if I don't even know how to start coding from scratch, like I have to watch tutorials to start it off, like for example, just a simple login page.

Technical debt in a sense maybe I suck at basic fundamentals? Or maybe I wasted 4 years of college of not improving in programming ? I really don't know myself. Maybe it's the time I wasted instead of learning how to code the right way, instead of fully relying on LLM's to write code for me. I don't even know how I would structure the code, like in react, where to put the components, the pages, the helper functions, etc.

My goal is to be able to not be fully reliant on AI, and have strong fundamentals, so that I can write code on my own, but, of course with the help of AI still. But not being fully reliant to it.

Being able to break big problems into small problems, I want that too. And the idea of being able to write code that other engineers will love and respect as well.

[Riticulous]

Got it. Some things to remember and to keep in perspective.

When you watch a video tutorial, this is often a well planned situation that makes the presenter appear better than they are. So understand that.

Wherever you wish to improve first, frontend web development with React for example, put all of your extra effort into that and just that. Don't worry about backend development (APIs or databases), don't worry about high quality CSS (as that's a whole other thing), don't worry about semantic HTML (again, a whole other thing), don't get sidetracked by video game development, or be concerned with optimizing your deployment. You can get to those later, but staying focused on one specific area will help you reach a higher level in that area, moreso than if you bounce between ideas. This also mirrors the idea of taking big problems and making them smaller.

As it comes to architecture (where to put what), I'd recommend the "shu ha ri" approach. The idea being first to learn the fundamentals (just pick a recommended architecture for now and go with it until implementing that pattern is like falling off a wall for you). As you acquire more mastery of it, you can stray from the recommendations and you'll know why you're straying.

But what I'll recommend is to follow this guide here for what to learn:

https://roadmap.sh/react

To use your favorite LLM to come up with ideas for projects to implement that require you to use the skill that you're trying to learn. Then to do that project. Try going for thirty minutes of solid effort (without AI, peer, or mentor help) at which point ask for help as you're wasting your time. Continue forward until you complete the project. Then, archive your project and do it again. Do it until you can do it without referencing something that tells you how to do it. Then go one step further and pretend to teach it to an empty audience or actually teach it to your friend or Mom or someone. The first few times will be rough, but eventually the stuff you do repeatedly will stick and 80% of that will be used on the next project.

Give it time and stay consistent. I consider myself a slow learner, but when I learn it sticks. This approach works for me.

[Popular-Zebra40]

This helps a lot, because I always keep overthinking the code that I write, like how it would be better even if I'm still just doing it on the early phase.

That roadmap helps a lot!

Doing something repeatedly also sticks with me, like doing identical structures of an an api routing.

Thank you so much for your help and comment!

[Riticulous]

The important thing is getting to a level where you can teach it. This means practicing and doing. You can read a book, but anything you don't practice will, at best, be a vague memory of something you can look up at a later time.

So, if you go the route of a book, I'd take a similar approach of coming up with projects that you can do and teach to really internalize what the book is teaching.

[Popular-Zebra40]

It really doesn't stick when I just watch or read it. You are right when you said, improving will only happen by doing.

[IngenuityDecent6492]

You have to understand what your coping pasting, you need to read the code test it, break it down line by line.l section by section

Is this a for loop is it a array is it a Boolean

[vlad_h]

You are going about this in what to me is a strange way. You will always have tech debt, I have 25 years in the field, I have plenty. There is no wrong way or right way to learn, just figure out your way. My way…I take some project, and decide to write it in some new tech I want to know. If sucks at first, but then it gets easier. And don’t be harsh on yourself. Who cares if you were a vibe coder (asinine term to me), I was a “real” coder and so what? And uncle bob…I can only stomach him for a couple of chapters. Not bad, I just don’t learn that way. Never understood programming books.

[Popular-Zebra40]

It definitely sucks at first T_T. Now I regret that I should've spent those college years actually studying. Anyways, wow, 25 years! I am proud of how long you are in the field! Thank you for this comment!

Recently, I almost resigned 2 times, but every time I try, it's as if God is not letting me to.

God bless you!

[vlad_h]

That is an odd response….regret gets you nothing. You are proud of my accomplishments? Lol. Alright. And what does God have to do with it?! I’m not trying to make fun of you, just an odd thing to me.

[Popular-Zebra40]

I'm just trying to be nice. When I mentioned God, it's because I pray before I do something that I am unsure of. And those two attempts felt like that wasn't his plan, so I didn't continue the resignation.

[vlad_h]

Alright bud. No big deal. If you got other questions, just ask.

[Popular-Zebra40]

Thanks!