Software is a manifestation of someone’s knowledge of and experience in and ideas about how a thing should work. We learn from the software we use, we benefit from everyone else’s ideas, we benefit from the hundreds and thousands of hours other people put into understanding a problem to design a solution. My workflow is better because of the incremental improvements made by developer after developer year after year. Would we have Claude Code if our foredevelopers hadn’t spent thousands of hours deep in thought, obsessing over every last detail?

Building all the software you use yourself, whether by hand or by vibe coding, cuts you off from the world.

I have no philosophical objection to vibe-coding apps for yourself, but personally, I wouldn’t be 1/10th of the engineer I am if I wasn’t constantly exposed to the work of others.

For some, this trend worries software engineers — who needs software if they can vibe code it themselves? — but I am much more optimistic. I think people will start valuing good software a lot more. Claude code can deliver the first 90%, but we all know it is the last 90% that differentiates.

I like to say "my code is 200% vibe-coded; the tricky bit is figuring out which 100% to keep".

Decisions matter, both technical and product ones. LLMs don't make as good technical or product decisions as I would, and the way I work with them tries to maximize my strengths and the LLM's strengths. I don't know if I succeed, but it's better than "make me an app like X" as a prompt.

Making your own software is a good way to escape enshittification and influence.

I switched from Spotify to buying MP3s and using my own audio client, because I'm fed up of a company telling me which music I should listen to every single time I open the app. It costs more, but I own the music and I escape the constant redesigns, price increases and influential behaviour.

Most apps are very simple and there isn't too much to learn, especially if you're building it to scale to a userbase of yourself. I can't see the need for a ton of CRUD apps which demand subscription fees personally. If you build them yourself, you get to keep your own data, build it out the way you want it, keep it that way, and use computers as a person using a tool as opposed to a customer buying a product.

Opensource has been available since before the internet. What is `git clone ... make install` if not "vibe coding"

Your entire post is self selection bias and survivorship bias.

SWE field is one of the most cognitive dissonant social groups; cries foul at the slightest whiff their free speech and agency is being put upon; seeks to reduce blockers to their productivity, fewer PMs! Less management!

Now complains about users using their machines without having to block on an SWE.

Insert that quote about how someone will not see the obvious if their paycheck relies on them ignoring the obvious.

Here come LLMs and all they can accomplish with a few arithmetical rules instead of the arbitrary semantics of an SWE; watch as SWEs block social evolution away from disrupting software engineers.

As an example; "protected memory", among many other individual software problems, is an access control problem mired in old semantics relative to OS monoliths.

Didn’t see you all halting as you decimated travel agent jobs, retail jobs, etc etc. Technology advancement must now stand still after centuries of evolution? The self selection bias is as obvious as Trump's.

"Transportation, like software, is accumulated knowledge. The horse embodied centuries of breeding, training, and hard-won understanding about terrain, endurance, and failure. People learned from the horses they rode. Travel improved through incremental refinement, generation after generation. The automobile didn’t appear in a vacuum.

Building all your transportation yourself—whether by breeding horses or assembling a Model T—cuts you off from that accumulated experience. You lose the benefits of thousands of hours spent by others thinking carefully about the same problems.

I have no objection to Model Ts for personal use, but I wouldn’t be one-tenth the traveler I am without constant exposure to well-bred horses.

Some worry cars make horses obsolete—who needs breeders if anyone can buy an engine? I’m more optimistic. As cars proliferate, people will value good horses more. A Model T gets you the first 90%; it’s the last 90%—judgment, robustness, and adaptability—that differentiates."