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Discussion on: The 60-Year-Old Developer Who Broke Hacker News: This Is What Vibe Coding Actually Looks Like

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leob profile image
leob • Edited

Yeah wow, quite a different angle from most "AI coding" articles I've come across on dev.to - this sounds like "the rise of the Citizen Developer", to use a slightly annoying marketing term (invented by "low code"/"no code" tool vendors) ...

Sounds like low code/no code "which works" - traditional low code/no code tools are in most cases too limited, or too cumbersome ...

Not sure if "real" ;-) developers should be worried, but if I were a low code/no code tool vendor I'd certainly be ...

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matthewhou profile image
Matthew Hou

"Low code that actually works" is a really good way to put it. That's basically the pitch, right?

The key difference I see: traditional low-code tools gave you a constrained sandbox — you could build what the tool designers anticipated, but hit a wall the moment you needed something custom. Vibe coding with a general-purpose LLM doesn't have that ceiling in the same way. You can describe anything, and it'll take a shot at it.

The flip side is that low-code tools at least enforced some guardrails. When anyone can generate arbitrary code, the failure modes are a lot more creative (and dangerous).

I think you're right that low-code vendors should be nervous. The ones that survive will probably pivot to being "AI-assisted platforms with built-in guardrails" — basically adding the safety layer that raw vibe coding doesn't have. Curious if you've seen any of them making that move already?

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leob profile image
leob

You're right - I think they will pivot in that direction, actually that would be obvious to do ...

I've head the mantra "XYZ will make programmers obsolete - domain experts will develop those apps themselves!" for decades, where XYZ was, through the years:

CASE tools
4GL
5GL
Low code
No code

well, it has never happened - and I've never been afraid it would happen either, because I didn't believe in it ...

But this time around it's a REALLY a different story (I had a discussion on LinkedIn with a CASE/5GL/Oracle Forms guy who didn't believe me, but he was just clearly "in denial") ...

This time around I do believe that a good deal of "basic" and especially "in house" programming work might be going away from "programmers" - domain experts are gonna do it themselves ...

The arguments around code quality and safety etc are valid, but mainly for "public facing" apps - less so for "in house" utility apps (mainly used within companies) ...