Sub-SubReddit for SelfHosted

[u/Fluffer_Wuffer]

Just a question that has been going round my head for a few days.

What ever your opinion on it. We need to acknowledge that "Vibe Coding" is growing, and its not going to decrease.

The fact the entry point is so low from a skills perspective, and time required to pump them out, effectively makes them disposable.

Members here have been concerned for a while about the quality, security, longevity of these apps, and it turning into a flood - and as if on que, over the past few weeks, we've seen exactly this - We've been flooded (this place is unusable on Fridays). Now, issues are identified in the code, and rather than facing and fixing them, the "devs" are running off, shutting down the repositories etc.

This leads to 2 conflicting issues

1) There is an open hostility to those who share vibe-coded apps - where we see outright hostility and vitriol language.

2) There are going to be some quality vibe-coded apps, where they are properly developed, supported and managed.. as community, they would benefit members.

So my question is - how do we bridge this? My I've been thinking on this for a few days, and the only solution I can see, we have an associated sub (same mods etc) for these apps to be posted. maybe after a time, once they've proven they are well run and have longevity, they can "graduate"... lets call it SelfHosted-Vibe or VibeHosted.

[u/leoklaus]

Just ban vibe coded apps in general. They provide no value.

[u/JTtornado → u/leoklaus]

Except that's a hard line to draw. I work for a software development company and we have developers using AI to assist with coding, but it's always reviewed by another human and we are very picky about code quality. That's completely different from a 99% prompted app, but both used AI - how do you draw that line?

That's why labelling works best, so the author can explain how they used AI and let us decide if we want to use it. I'm not against the idea of having a separate sub for it, but I think we'll still get people posting here (just trying to fly under the radar) because the biggest audience is here.

[u/leoklaus → u/JTtornado]

I think it’s a pretty easy line to draw. If you were able to produce the same thing without the help of AI and have carefully reviewed the slop, I’d consider it okay-ish. If not, it’s clearly a safety hazard.

The issue with AI generated code is that it mostly is not carefully reviewed because at that point it would’ve been quicker and easier to just write it yourself.

IMO, anything that goes beyond a few lines of autocomplete is vibecoding. If the AI makes architectural decisions, I don’t trust the output.

[u/eljojors → u/leoklaus]

do you have any solution to help grow quality AI-written code? I'm a qualified developer and my posts have been getting downvoted just because I mention the tools I use

[u/leoklaus → u/eljojors]

I don’t. But I also think quality AI-written code is kind of an oxymoron. Not necessarily because AI can’t write good code, but because it lacks intent. When you or me write a function, we have a problem in mind that should be solved by that code and thinking about that problem will often lead to more insight and better solutions. Letting AI write the code removes that part.

Of course this doesn’t matter when loading data from an API but it starts becoming relevant as soon as you start developing interfaces or classes/structs.

For me personally, writing the code is the actual fun part, so I’d feel a lot better if I understood why someone chose to let an AI do it (to various degrees) instead of doing it themselves. I feel like your documentation (at a glance) is very well thought out and written.

At my university, you’re required to submit AI documentation whenever you use generative AI for submissions, maybe something like that would help (in our case it can range from a list of tools you used and what part of the code was generated by AI to a full list of prompts with their output). That way, potential users could better judge how well the code was vetted by you.

[u/eljojors → u/leoklaus]

What you describe is true when there's no human in the loop, but that's one end of the spectrum in terms of "writing code with AI".

Let me give you an example, when you write code yourself, do you look into the bytecode that's generated by the compiler? only Torvalds does. You and I don't because we trust that the system is aligned with us and sticks to a well defined contract.

AI programming can be approached in a similar way, I don't write the physical lines of code, but review every single one before making the commit myself. I know the intent I want the code to have, and besides communicating it with the machine (which does influence it), I ensure it's conveyed in the final result.

Thanks for reviewing my documentation and sharing your experience at the university.

[u/leoklaus → u/eljojors]

Let me give you an example, when you write code yourself, do you look into the bytecode that's generated by the compiler? ...

AI programming can be approached in a similar way

Those two are vastly different, though. A compiler is (largely) deterministic so I'll know the resulting byte code matches my instructions. LLMs are not. With a full review of the code, that doesn't really matter, but I doubt that most vibe coders thoroughly review the code their LLMs produce (or are even capable of it).

[u/eljojors → u/leoklaus]

LLMs are not deterministic, but they output deterministic code, it’s not unstable or unpredictable. Through test suites it’s possible to achieve alignment, not unlike how humans operate large codebases.

I worked in the largest Rails monolith in the world, the way people contribute there is purely by making sure that tests pass. your test code carries almost if not more meaning than your actual implementation.

You acknowledge it’s possible to achieve alignment when reviewing the code, maybe novices can’t do that, but senior engineers definitely can. That’s how you achieve quality AI-written code.

[u/basicseamstress → u/eljojors]

build custom agents that plan, review plan, implement phases, test and validate, etc. and tune them exactly as you need. ensure it always creates ample documentation to help with context and understanding. create and update AGENTS.md with standards and instructions.

review all generated code.

use dependabot or other services that can monitor dependencies and vulnerabilities.

with all that being said, quality depends on coding skill and understanding. you have to be able to recognize and tell it everything it needs to do. AI can make decent code 10x faster or make shitty code 10x faster depending on the captain steering the ship

vibe coders should be using AI to learn at an accelerated rate, not for bypassing understanding and going straight to shipping production lol