Is vibecoding part of a solarpunk future?
https://lemmy.ca/post/40882128
lemmy.caIs vibecoding part of a solarpunk future? - Lemmy.caI started a local vibecoders group because I think it has the potential to help
my community. (What is vibecoding? It’s a new word, coined last month. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibe_coding
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibe_coding]) Why might it be part of a solarpunk
future? I often see and am inspired by solarpunk art that depicts relationships
and family happiness set inside a beautiful blend of natural and technological
wonder. A mom working on her hydroponic garden as the kids play. Friends
chatting as they look at a green cityscape. All of these visions have what I
would call a 3-way harmony–harmony between humankind and itself, between
humankind and nature, and between nature and technology. But how is this harmony
achieved? Do the “non-techies” live inside a hellscape of technology that other
people have created? No! At least, I sure don’t believe in that vision. We need
to be in control of our technology, able to craft it, change it, adjust it to
our circumstances. Like gardening, but with technology. I think vibecoding is a
whisper of a beginning in this direction. Right now, the capital requirements to
build software are extremely high–imagine what Meta paid to have Instagram
developed, for instance. It’s probably in the tens of millions or hundreds of
millions of dollars. It’s likely that only corporations can afford to build this
type of software–local communities are priced out. But imagine if everyone could
(vibe)code, at least to some degree. What if you could build just the
habit-tracking app you need, in under an hour? What if you didn’t need to be an
Open Source software wizard to mold an existing app into the app you actually
want? Having AI help us build software drops the capital requirements of
software development from millions of dollars to thousands, maybe even hundreds.
It’s possible (for me, at least) to imagine a future of participative software
development–where the digital rules of our lives are our own, fashioned
individually and collectively. Not necessarily by tech wizards and esoteric
capitalists, but by all of us. Vibecoding isn’t quite there yet–we aren’t quite
to the Star Trek computer just yet. I don’t want to oversell it and promise the
moon. But I think we’re at the beginning of a shift, and I look forward to
exploring it. P.S. If you want to try vibecoding out, I recommend v0 among all
the tools I’ve played with. It has the most accurate results with the least pain
and frustration for now. Hopefully we’ll see lots of alternatives and especially
open source options crop up soon.
@jnk@masto.es