For context, I started an experiment to rebuild a previous project entirely with LLMs back in June '25 ("fully vibecoded" - not even reading the source).
After iterating and finally settling on a design/plan/debug loop that works relatively well, I'm now experiencing an old problem like new: doing too much!
As a junior engineer, it's common to underestimate the scope of some task, and to pile on extra features/edge cases/etc. until you miss your deadline. A valuable lesson any new programmer/software engineer necessarily goes though.
With "agentic engineering," it's like I'm right back at square one. Code is so cheap/fast to write, I find myself doing it the "right way" from the get go, adding more features even though I know I shouldn't, and ballooning projects until they reach a state of never launching.
I feel like a kid again (:
If I give it anything resembling anything that I'm not an expert on, it will make a mess of things.
Is that why it's in quotes because it's the opposite of the right way?
If there's one thing I learned in a decade+ of professional programming, it's that we can't predict the future. That's it, that simple. YANGNI. (also: model the data, but I'm trying to make a point here)
We got into coding because we like to code; we invent reasons and justifications to code more, ship more, all the world's problems can be solved if only developers shipped more code.
Nirvana is reached when they that love and care about the shipping of the code know also that it's not the shipping of the code that matters.
The most important thing is shipping/getting feedback, everything else is theatre at best, or a project-killing distraction at worst.
As a concrete example, I wanted to update my personal website to show some of these fully-vibecoded projects off. That seemed too simple, so instead I created a Rotten Tomatoes-inspired web app where I could list the projects. Cool, should be an afternoon or two.
A few yak shaves later, and I'm adding automatic repo import[0] from Github...
Totally unnecessary, because I don't actually expect anyone to use the site other than me!
I JUST WANT TO CODE!
It gets us all. And it makes us better I think, to care about the craft. LLM people seem split on that. But it's both to me: gotta care about the craft, also as a professional, it's not the code, it's business outcomes. All good. hold two truths.