Comment by didibus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by didibus | Hacker News Reader

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I want to understand the distinction you're making against vibe coding.

In vibe coding, the developer specifies only functional requirements (what the software must do) and non-functional requirements (the qualities it must have, like performance, scalability, or security). The AI delivers a complete implementation, and the developer reviews it solely against those behaviors and qualities. Any corrections are given again only in terms of requirements, never code, and the cycle repeats until the software aligns.

But you're trying to coin a term for the following?

In ??? coding, the developer specifies code changes that must be made, such as adding a feature, modifying an existing function, or removing unused logic. The AI delivers the complete set of changes to the codebase, and the developer reviews it at the code level. Any corrections are given again as updates to the code, and the cycle repeats until the code aligns.

Did I understand it right?

If so, I've most seen the latter be called AI pair-programming or AI-assisted coding. And I'd agree with the other commenters, please DO NOT call it async programming (even if you add async AI it's too confusing).

> In ??? coding, the developer specifies code changes that must be made, such as adding a feature, modifying an existing function, or removing unused logic. The AI delivers the complete set of changes to the codebase, and the developer reviews it at the code level. Any corrections are given again as updates to the code, and the cycle repeats until the code aligns.

Yes

> If so, I've most seen the latter be called AI pair-programming or AI-assisted coding.

I specifically considered both terms and am not a fan * "pair-programming" is something that involves two people paying attention while writing code, and in this case, i'm not looking at the screen while the AI system writes code * "AI-assisted coding" is generally anchored to copilots/IDE style agents where people are actively writing code, and an AI assists them.

I totally hear you on conflating async. However, I think the appropriate term would clearly indicate that this happens without actively watching the AI write code. Unfortunately I think other terms like "background" may also be confusing for similar reasons.

I think it's still vibe coding. In practice any AI-driven process where you tell the AI what you want and it writes the code is considered "vibe coding."

No, it isn’t. There is a vast amount of difference between “vibe coding” and prompt driven development.

I’m giving the benefit of the doubt to the author here that it’s very unlikely they consider their example to be an actual representative scenario.

Vibe coding is to allow the AI to make the majority of the decisions. What the author describes is more like a highly complex autocomplete; you establish the fairly detailed outline of what is needed, often using tools/servers/etc tailored to use cases, and expect the AI to design an implementation that is in-line with the human-made decisions that preceded it, which is why I draw the comparison to autocomplete. Vibe coding is more like paying the kid next door to write your school essay…comparatively.

Agreed. There is a difference.

I used vibe coding to build a UI prototype of workflow. I used mockup images as the basis of the layout and let the agent use Redis as the persistence layer. I know it will be throw away and don't care how it is working underneath as long as it can demonstrate the flow I want.

I have also used prompt driven development to allow the agent to code something I expect to turn into a longer term product. I do more review of the code, ensure it is meeting all standards to development I would expect of myself or any other developer.

There are certainly differing degrees of the two types of development.

Agentic already implies what you want to imply. Maybe just call it agentic coding?

I feel that be the most clear. Agentic coding implies any workflow using AI agents. Which mean it's always the same agentic coding loop:

    1. Prompt...
    2. Wait or go do something else while agents make edits...
    3. Come back to review the result
    4. Go to 1

> is generally anchored to copilots/IDE style agents where people are actively writing code

I don't know when you last used these, but they're all agentic now. The workflow is exactly the same, you don't write code and auto-complete suggestions, you prompt and they go and make multiple edits to multiple files and can take upwards of 10 minutes, once done they show you a diff (or you can trust) and you're free to review/test or not, and prompt some more.

Edit: Or what the other commenter said: "prompt driven coding", that could be a good term as well.

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