Why I don’t vibe code

Reactions to the article’s anti-LLM stance

• Many readers think the critique overgeneralizes from limited experience with weak or free models.
• Others resonate with the discomfort at “paying to think” and the desire to avoid SaaS lock‑in.
• Some appreciate the writing and the focus on process over product, even while disagreeing with the conclusion.

Productivity vs. craft and “hard problems”

• One camp argues LLMs automate “lower-tier” mechanical coding, freeing humans for higher‑level design and more complex systems.
• Another camp feels core, enjoyable parts of engineering are being offloaded, weakening skills and understanding.
• Disagreement over whether recent typical dev work was truly “hard” or mostly framework/config glue.

Spectrum of LLM use (beyond vibecoding)

• Several commenters reject the binary of “no LLMs” vs “agent writes everything.”
• Common “middle ground” uses: autocomplete, one-off snippets, boilerplate, tests, integration glue, while humans review every line.
• Others report using agentic tools heavily but still steering architecture and reviewing output.

Costs, access, and “cheapskate” ethos

• Strong current of people who avoid recurring SaaS fees and prefer FOSS and local tools; LLM subscriptions feel culturally wrong, not just expensive.
• Counterpoint: $20–$100/month is seen as trivial relative to productivity gains, especially for startups.
• Concern that rising and opaque token costs could make experimentation and hobby work less viable.

Code quality, maintainability, and complexity

• Some see LLMs enabling faster delivery of working systems and personal projects that would otherwise be infeasible.
• Others report AI‑written codebases as sprawling, incoherent, and harder to reason about than hand‑written code.
• Fear of becoming dependent on tools to maintain code they generated; worry about “deskilling” and bloated, low‑quality output.

Agentic environments and local models

• Enthusiasts emphasize that results depend heavily on the “harness”: sandboxing, tooling, context strategies, and multi‑agent workflows.
• Local/open‑weight models are seen as a path to reduce cost and lock‑in, though performance and hardware demands are debated.

Analogy and culture wars

• Recurrent analogies compare LLM refusal to refusing cars or tractors; critics call this a “luxury belief,” supporters note external costs.
• Some frame coding-without-LLMs as “trad coding” or a kind of identity/virtue choice, for better or worse.