Linux and Git inventor Linus Torvalds discussed AI in software development in an interview earlier this month, describing himself as “fairly positive” about vibe coding, but as a way into computing, not for production coding where it would likely be horrible to maintain.
Torvalds was interviewed by Dirk Hohndel, head of open source at Verizon, at the Linux Foundation Open Source Summit in Seoul, South Korea, earlier this month.
Torvalds is technical lead and maintainer of the Linux kernel, but said that “for the last almost 20 years, I’ve not been a programmer.” As for Git, which he invented, “I really just look at it from the side.”
I been vibe coding a Discord bot to teach myself Python. I’m finally good enough to get frustrated with the code the Ai gives me sometimes and do it myself.
Good work. That’s a solid junior level understanding of code.
Using LLMs as a semi-incompetent tutor is a good use. They know the basics well enough to explain it to you and have an idea of how to do the more complex stuff… but if you actually needed the thing done, you’d hire a professional.