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[David Bloomfield] wanted to make some tweaks to an embedded system, but didn’t quite have the requisite skills. He decided to see if vibe coding could help.

[David]’s goal was simple. To take the VESC Telemetry Display created by [Lukas Janky] and add some tweaks of his own. He wanted to add more colors to the display, while changing the format of the displayed data and tweaking how it gets saved to EEPROM. The only problem was that [David] wasn’t experienced in coding at all, let alone for embedded systems like the Arduino Nano. His solution? Hand over the reigns to a large language model. [David] used Gemini 2.5 Pro to make the changes, and by and large, got the tweaks made that he was looking for.

There are risks here, of course. If you’re working on an embedded system, whatever you’re doing could have real world consequences. Meanwhile, if you’re relying on the AI to generate the code and you don’t fully understand it yourself… well, the possibilities are obvious. It pays to know what you’re doing at the end of the day. In this case, it’s hard to imagine much going wrong with a simple telemetry display, but it bears considering the risks whatever you’re doing.

We’ve talked about the advent of vibe coding before, too, with [Jenny List] exploring this nascent phenomenon. Expect it to remain a topic of controversy in coding circles for some time. Video after the break.


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[-] x00z@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

We call it Poop Coding.

[-] chirospasm@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

What intrigues me most about 'vibe coding' is also what intrigues me about 3D printing -- it's a tool that can't and won't natively produce at a high level of quality, like more robust manufacturing setups run by professionals can, but it does help the layperson solve problems they would otherwise be unable to solve themselves, often at an adequate level of quality. And I think most folks who use 'vibe coding', akin to those who 3D print, are aware of this. It's all experiment, discovery, trial-and-error.

I believe, if we consider 'vibe coding' as a more accessible approach to development for the less technical hobbyist, perhaps we can also consider it a conversation starter with the folks who would use it to talk more about the nuances of software engineering as a whole. I think there's something there.

Nothing is a panacea for specialization, to be clear. Folks who are skilled will always be SMEs. If they choose to engage with AI, they will understand that AI is just a tool to support them under the banner of those skills they know they possess. The skilled can guide thrse tools. The unskilled can only follow what the tool has been guided to produce for them. Major difference in quality.

But: that's where the conversation part of this comes into play. How do skilled folks talk to unskilled folks about the importance of the skill without it sounding so abstract?

Maybe 'vibe coding' is just another place from which to teach.

this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
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