No, coding can be done by machines. But if you're telling a machine what to program, you're not coding. The machine is. Youre no longer a programmer, you're just a user.

Unless you’re writing pure assembly, aren’t we all using machines to generate code?

I suppose a more rigorous definition would be useful. We can probably make it more narrow as time goes on

To me, the essence of coding is about using formal languages and definable state machines (i.e, your toolchain) to manipulate the state of a machine in a predictable way.

C, C++, even with their litany of undefined behavior, are still formal languages, and their compilers can still be predicted and understood (no matter how difficult that is). If the compiler does something unexpected, its because you, the programmer, lacked the knowledge of either the language or the compiler's state.

Vibe coding uses natural languages, and interacts with programs whose state is not only unknown, but unknowable. The machine, for the same input, may produce wildly different output. If the machine produces unexpected code, its not because of a lack of knowledge on the part of it programmer - its because the machine is inherently unpredictable and requires more prodding in soft, fuzzy, natural language.

Telling something what outcomes you want, even if described in technical terms only a programmer would understand, is not coding. It's essentially just being a project manager.

Now you may ask - who cares about this no true Scotsman fallacy? If its coding or not coding, we are still producing a program which serves the product needs of the customer.

Personally, I did not learn to code because I give a shit about the product needs of the customer, or the financial wellbeing of the business. I enjoy coding for its own sake - because it is fun to use systems of well defined rules to solve problems. Learning and using C++ is fun, for me; it seems every day i learn something new about the language and how the compiler behaves and I've been using C++ for several years (and I started learning it when I was 12!)

Describing the outcome or goal of a project in natural human language sounds like a nightmare, to be honest. I became a software engineer so I could minimize the amount of natural language required to succeed in life. Natural language has gotten me (and, I suspect, people like me) in trouble over and over again throughout adolescence, but I've never written a piece of code that was misunderstood or ambiguous enough for people to become threatened by or outraged by it.

I think the disconnect is that some people care about products, and some people care about code.

> can still be predicted and understood (no matter how difficult that is).

If we're making up hypotheticals, then LLMs can be predicted and understood (no matter how difficult that is). They don't run on pixie dust.

It's qualitatively different to go through source code and specifications to understand how something works than to look at a database with all the weights of an LLM and pretend like you could predict the output.

you don't have to - just run the matrix multiplication. it's no different from using a pocket calculator.

Ummm, my entire career I have been telling machines what to program, the machines are taking my garbage C/Go/Python/Perl/whatever prompts and translating it to ASM/Machine code that oher machines will use to do... stuff

They're substantively different. Using a compiler requires you to have an internalized model of a state machine and, importantly, a formal language. C, assembler, java, etc. are all essentially different from using the softness of the English language to coerce results out of a black box

No, not at all.

In both all you need is the ability to communicate to the machine in a way that the machine can convert your ideas into actions.

The restricted language of a compiler is a handicap, not evidence of a skill - we've been saying forever that "Natural Language" compilers would be a game changer, and that's all that an AI really is

Edit: It appears that this discussion is going to end up with a definition of "coding"

Is it coding if you tell the computer to perform some action, or is it coding if you tell it how to do that in some highly optimised way (for varying definitions of optimised, eg. Memory efficient, CPU efficient, Dev time efficient... etc)

It is not coding if you use natural human language

How so?

BASIC was supposed to be astep toward using a natural human language, and a number of Microsoft products were too.

As I said before, we've been wanting to use a Natural Human Language for programming for a long time.

Edit: adding a wikipedia reference because apparently I am the only person on the planet that has been looking for a way to use a Natural Human Language for programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_language_programming

Second Edit: Adding the following paragraph from the wikipedia page for emphasis

Researchers have started to experiment with natural language programming environments that use plain language prompts and then use AI (specifically large language models) to turn natural language into formal code. For example Spatial Pixel created a natural language programming environment to turn natural language into P5.js code through OpenAI's API. In 2021 OpenAI developed a natural language programming environment for their programming large language model called Codex.

Maybe you have. I would like no such thing.

Oh, and.. who are you?

I think after all the goalpost moving, we have to ask - why the bitflip does it matter what we call it?

Some people are getting a lot of work done using LLMs. Some of us are using it on occasion to handle thing we don't understand deeply but can trivially verify. Some of us are using it out of laziness because it helps with boilerplate. Everyone who is using it outside of occasional tests is doing it because they find it useful to write code. If it's not coding, then I personally couldn't care less. Only a True Scotsman should case.

If my boss came to me and said "hey we're going to start vibe coding everything st work from now on. You can manually edit code but claude code needs to be your primary driver from now on" I would quit and find a new career. I enjoy coding. I like solving puzzles using the specifics of a language syntax. I write libraries and APIs and I put a great deal of effort into making sure the interface is usable by a human being.

If we get to the point where we are no longer coding, we are just describing things in product language to a computer and letting it do all the real work, then I will find a more fulfilling career because this ain't it

By the time it works flawlessly, it won't be your career anymore, it'll be the product manager's. They will describe what they want and the AI will produce it. You won't be told to "use Claude all the time".

I personally hate coding, but it's a means to an end, and I care about the end. I'm also paranoid about code I don't understand, so I only rarely use AI and even then it's either for things I understand 100% or things that don't matter. But it would be silly to claim they don't produce working code, no matter what we want to call it.

This is the core of the issue. You hate coding, and I love it. I chose to be a software engineer not because I like using software, but because I like writing software.

If we get to a point where the engineers are replaced by machines, I would hope that the project managers were replaced years before that, as a final act of revenge

This argument is fallacious.

I enjoy a lot of things (Software Engineering is one of them) that in NO way determines whether or not AI is coding, nor does it guarantee me a career (just ask all the blacksmiths that disappeared once cars became the mass transport vehicle).

The fact that people are going to (possibly) be able to instruct a computer to do whatever they wish without the need of a four year degree and several years of experience scares you, I get that, but that's not going to have any effect on reality.

Edit: Have a look at all the peoples careers that have ended because software took over.

And more importantly perhaps to u/shortrounddev2, if they enjoy coding so much, they'll still be able to do it as a hobby! It's just that there may not be anybody willing to pay for a slow lumbering human to work their way through the problem.

I don't like X, therefore X isn't true.

Writing code that gets compiled is deterministic, but asking an LLM to produce code is a non-deterministic guessing game.

Notice how nobody is skeptical of compilers?

No one is skeptical of compilers?! I guess you haven’t met many old fashioned C systems programmers, who go out of their way to disable compiler optimisations as much as they can because “it just produces garbage”.

Every generation, we seem to add a level of abstraction conceding because for most of us, it enhances productivity. And every generation, there is a crowd who rails against the new abstraction, mostly unaware of all of the levels of abstraction they already use in their coding.

Luxury! When I were a lad we didn't have them new fangled compilers, we wrote ASM by hand, because compilers cannot (and still to this day I think) optimise ASM as well as a human

Abstractions and compilers are deterministic, no matter if a neckbeard is cranky about the results. LLMs are not deterministic, they are a guessing game. An LLM is not an abstraction, it's a distraction. If you can't tell the difference, then maybe you should lay off the "AI" slop.

I've been thinking about this - you're right that LLMs are not going to be deterministic (AIUI) when it comes to producing code to solve a problem.

BUT neither are humans, if you give two different humans the same task, then, unless they copy one another, then you will get two different results.

Further, as those humans evolve through their career, the code that they produce will also change.

Now, I do want to point out that I'm very much still at the "LLMs are an aid, not the full answer.. yet" point, but a lot of the argument against them seems to be (rapidly) coming to the point where it's no longer valid (AI slop and all).

> BUT neither are humans, if you give two different humans the same task, then, unless they copy one another, then you will get two different results.

Thats true, but giving a human a task isn't coding - its project management

First, it's not "project management" - it's delegation

Secondly, and this is far more important, it's telling a machine what you want it to do - in text

Exactly like coding.

It would only seem like coding to someone who doesnt code. It is absolutely not the same at all

You keep making these claims as though you are some sort of authority, but nothing you have said has matched reality.

I mean full credit to you with your disingenuous goalpost shifting and appeals to authority, but reality has no time for you (and neither do I anymore).