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slot machine coding

2025-07-21 17:33:03.363415+02 by Dan Lyke 2 comments

Hannah @uncanny_static@chaos.social

I watched someone "vibe code" for an hour and now I think "slot machine coding" is a more appropriate name. "Let us pull the lever again and see if the code gets better with this prompt."

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Movies Software Engineering Gambling ]

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#Comment Re: slot machine coding made: 2025-07-21 22:24:23.692583+02 by: spc476 [edit history]

The two arguments I see over and over when talking to AI skeptics are “you are holding it wrong” and “oh, that LLM is over 20 minutes old, try the new one.”

I see AI vibe coding destroying the whole “reproducable builds” movement if taken to the extreme, on the notion that “source code” in a vibe coding culture is the prompt itself, not the resulting code, like when using `lex` the source code is the input to it, not the resulting sludge of C code.

Also, they're putting blue food coloring in everything (via Lobsters).

#Comment Re: slot machine coding made: 2025-07-24 01:25:19.27312+02 by: Dan Lyke

100% on the blue food coloring (linked here), and yeah, the "it can't be that stupid, you must be prompting it wrong" factor is overwhelming.

And, yes: I really wonder what's gonna happen with reproduceability.

Although I've whined before that I actually have for (...) loops around various Mac layout code because I find that if I call it enough times the frame setting actually eventually sticks, so it's not like reproducible computing is a factor for Apple right now.

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