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In the recent months / weeks I'll ready so many headlines about "AI will be able to create whole applications easily", "No coders needed, everything will be AI", "Vibe Coding is the future" so I thought I'd try it out. I've been building React Apps and TypeScript Backends for a few years so I am not a total newbie. I wanted to create a simple React Native App which has a Bottom Sheet and display a map. Already at the first step - creating the map - ChatGPT o3 gave me completely invalid code. It used a pretty old version of the library which wasn't compatible with the latest react release. It also got few things with expo vs. "pure" react native wrong. Sometimes the code it threw at me included unused styles or variables.

Am I missing something? How are people seemingly building complex applications if the models struggle with basic things like keeping up to date with releases? What are your experiences?

Comments (4)

codingdave · 3h ago

You aren't missing a thing. LLMs produce code that is somewhat correct, but wrong enough that it needs correction. The people promoting "vibe coding" are saying that you can just tell it the concerns, and eventually it will land on something that works. Everyone else codes the corrections themselves. But AI simply does not produce working code without human interventions.

It also does not keep up to date with releases. That is not a valid expectation, and if you are working with leading-edge releases and libraries, LLMs will not help. On the same note, it cannot innovate - it will give you code that fits common conventions. Most of the time this works, but if you are doing truly novel work, its results will frustrate you more often than not.

rorylaitila · 3h ago

With AI coding it makes projects even faster to get started. Like anything else, total cost will be dominated by long tail problems. Vibe coding can't solve the longest tail problem of "am I building the right thing?" These interstitial problems of code quality you mention will be worked out I think, but it won't matter. To put it the opposite way: if I already know in advance what I need to build to be "successful", the cost of getting code to production was already a minor concern.

That being said, the speed at which I can explore solutions with it is greatly improved. This has a big effect on my motivation to start ideas. In some domains, simply getting more times at bat is the critical path.

viraptor · 1h ago

You're right, but missing some ideas. Sure, it will use an older library sometimes, leave unused variables or make mistakes. But if you're really vibe coding, the question is "if I respond that this doesn't work, will it be fixed?"

If it does get fixed, who cares about the variables or mixed patterns? Vibe coding at this stage is expected to give running code, not clean and maintainable one. And it often does, but it's not there for complex applications yet.

cranberryturkey · 3h ago

CNBC had a bit about "vibe coding" this morning so its officially lamestream. lol

I use roocode and auto-approve most tasks and then I do a code review at the end. It saves a ton of time but costs a ton of money too