I have a new technique for reliably vibecoding apps:

First, you write your requirements in an unambiguous specification language. This is the prompt, but to disambiguate it from less precise prompts, we will call it the source of truth encoding, or source code for short. You then feed it to an agent that will create an of outputs by applying some heuristic-driven transforms that are likely (but not guaranteed) to improve performance. This agent compiles a load of information about how to transform the code into a single pipeline, so we’ll call it a ‘compiler’. This then feeds to the next agent that finds missing parts of the program and tries to fill them in with existing implementations. This is more efficient than simply generating new code and more reliable since the existing implementations are better tested. This agent has a knowledge base of existing code organised in grouping that I’ll refer to as ‘libraries’. It creates links in that web of knowledge between the outputs of the first agent and these existing ‘libraries’ and so we’ll call it a ‘linker’.

I think it might catch on. VCs: I think we can build this thing for only a couple of hundred million dollars! And the compute requirements are far lower than for existing agentic workflows, so we can sell it as a service and become profitable far sooner than other AI startups. Sign up now for our A round! We have a working proof of concept that can output the Linux kernel, LibreOffice, and many other large codebases from existing prompts!

@david_chisnall Large Language Virtual Model...

@david_chisnall around 10 years ago i had a slide in a presentation about the "ideal tool" which was "DWIM" - do what i mean.

This was meant a joke and in the following i presented, that (especially in research) "what i mean" is helplessly weak defined.

(The presentation was about "the reasonable tool")

Fast-forward 10 years.

@david_chisnall Those who understand history are doomed to reframe it?

@david_chisnall
I dunno, sounds kinda pie-in-the-sky.

@david_chisnall
I wish the market cared about reliability

@wolf480pl @david_chisnall

> I wish the market cared about reliability

Nobody has cared enough about FOSS maintainers to make sure they can eat. Why would they start caring about the purity ideals of noncontributing users?

@hopeless @david_chisnall

I don't mean it from a noncontributing FOSS user perspective.

Imagine two SaaS companies.

One of them takes its time to make reliable software, and run it in a fault-tolerant configuration.

The other vibe-codes everything in a fraction of that time and releases a buggy service.

Both charge their users a subscription for the use of their service.

Which do you think will make more money?

@wolf480pl @david_chisnall

Imagine two OSes... OS A "vibe codes everything" and "releases a buggy service" (for decades now).

OS B has no AI code, "takes its time to make reliable software" and can be run in a "fault tolerant configuration".

So due to your poor choice of example:

- OS A is windows, it makes billions.

- OS B is Linux, you can share copies for $0 under GPL 2.

@hopeless
So you decided to apply my argument to a situation that is not analogous, to one that compares two OSes whose developers pursue different goals, and somehow you still arrived at the same conclusion as I did.. thanks I guess?

Anyway, my point is, @david_chisnall's idea of "technique for reliably vibecoding apps" will not attract the investors he's talking about, because the investors want to make a lot of money, and those paying for software don't seem to appreciate reliability.

1/

@hopeless @david_chisnall
A better analogy would be a quickly thrown together system called Unix vs an arguably more carefully designed and higher quality system called Multics.

Turns out Multics took too long to develop and didn't get many users, while Unix started later, released first, and spread into many clones (Linux being one of them) and is very widely used to this day.

"worse is better", unfortunately

@wolf480pl @david_chisnall

The OP here is just trolling. There's a lot of fear around AI atm.

For future reference although you may feel you laid out your point obviously in the post I replied to, what you actually wrote was a scenario and a question, "who makes more money". It's absent in that text what your position is.

I answered your question, if it's agreeing with you then great, we agree on something. Using AI and making sloppy software doesn't seem to stop microsoft making money.

@hopeless
I thought my position was clear when I said "I wish market cared about reliability".

It implies I believe the market does not care about reliability.

I know the OP is joking, but his joke only makes sense if the people and companies that use vibecoding are unhappy that their software is unreliable. Which IMO they're not.

@wolf480pl Yes I can see you thought your position was clear.

But your wish about the market caring about reliability was not in the post I replied to. I think you'll find (indeed you just have) a reader can't arrive at understanding your position from that post.

Anyway have a nice rest of the evening.

@wolf480pl @david_chisnall there's no need for reliability when there's a lot of liquidity.

(if there was a 1 year minimum holding period on stocks, that would change things a lot, but that would require a whole ton of restructuring of global markets)

@ignaloidas @wolf480pl @david_chisnall

Lets go back to > 1 second, just as a try...

@kdacar @wolf480pl @david_chisnall eh, that would only impact high frequency trading, which yes, does suck, but in the end getting rid of that wouldn't change that much in terms of how markets operate at large.

FWIW my favorite solution to that side of things would be to move to a double-auction system with a 24h clearing period.
@ignaloidas
@david_chisnall @kdacar
Is HFT a problem tho? AFAIK it mostly does arbitrage trading, which is like, someone has to do it or the price discrepancies will grow...
@wolf480pl @david_chisnall @kdacar for stock markets where each stock is only traded in one market it doesn't really matter - there HFT is just a drag which mostly works from getting/guessing advance info about other trades (and not like you can't do arbitrage trading on large time periods, if the price updates only once a day you just can't rely on being faster then others to get the profit)

and anyways, with a double auction with a decently long period, you get the idealistic view of how the markets "should" work - you get the supply and demand curves, find the intersection, and pay/sell for said price.
@david_chisnall Wow, this is such a clever idea, I can't believe no-one's thought of it before. Good luck, and enjoy rolling in all that VC monies!

This is like the conversations our town had with some university students about sustainable energy innovations.

Them, excited, clutching their speaking notes: “We have worked out that if you had a way to move individuals collectively from one place to another, for a fee that amounted to less than the total cost of ownership of their cars over a measured period, and was dependable enough for the majority of people that the cost of switching was minimized, then you would significantly reduce carbon emissions, road repairs, and traffic jams.”

Me, in my outside voice: “So you’ve invented buses.”

GitLab discovers widespread npm supply chain attack

Malware driving attack includes "dead man's switch" that can harm user data.

about.gitlab.com

@david_chisnall

A couple of hundred thousands? That's optimistic. I expect it will run much higher. Perhaps consider crowd-sourcing it? 😅