Vibe coding has been the thing for several weeks
I decided to try out Cursor since it’s the hot new AI assisted development thing. I was shocked at how nobody is talking about dev machine security since you are essentially letting the tools run arbitrary commands on your behalf while having complete run of the filesystem. I wrote that blog post by the way using AI, because I was exhausted from the security rabbit hole I had fallen into, about the shocking lack of concern for security from vibe coders. I also fell into a massive Bitcoin rabbit hole, which I won’t go into right now.
Dev containers appear to be one way to mitigate risk, even if there are folks that are worried that the software that runs dev containers can be a security risk too.
Next day: Instead of continuing to complain about it
I tried to setup VSCode devcontainers myself. The tutorial video I watched said you could do it either with Docker or Podman. I paused the video, researched the difference between Docker and Podman, and chose to use Podman because you don’t have to run as root, which aligns perfectly with my aim to mitigate security risks of vibe coding environments. Some useful links on that.
I installed and configured Podman, it didn’t install properly initially, some steps took ages and I had to quit them, but after a few failed attempts, it was working. Life was good. Continued the tutorial video, which a bit later went on to say it was using Docker, and of course, the first time I tried to run some code in a devcontainer from VSCode using my new Podman setup it didn’t work
Initially it said it needed Docker to be installed, after lots of searching I found some articles that sort of were doing what I was doing but not quite, so had to totally ignore loads of confusing shit, and generally were equal parts helpful and confusing: here, here and here.
Eventually somewhere I found an article that talked about editing vscode config to point to podman instead of Docker, but I can’t find that article now, I guess in the fog of learning I forgot to save that article, or the tool I use to save links stopped working which happens sometimes, actually a lot.
Eventually eventually, VSCode stopped complaining about Docker not being installed...yey...but then immediately asked me to enter the root password, which was what I was trying to avoid by using Podman in the first place.
After yet more research I decided to go along with it because I was so exhausted, and maybe it was only asking for the root password because that’s what it usually has to do when it’s configured to use Docker, because Docker does require the root password. From all I could read about Podman, it definitely doesn’t run as root, so I guess VScode was just being dumb. I guess? But I don’t really know. Nobody online seems to have had this happen to them, which is kind of weird. Why does this sort of shit always happen to me, right?
I guess every path in software at some stage has to have somebody take the first step, and this time it just happens to be me, yet again, for the millionth time. In a little bit you’ll be blamming the total destruction of the multiverse on Podman running as root, even though that apparently is not possible because it literally doesn’t have a deamon running. But anyway whatever, right? You think I’m exaggerating don’t you? You have no fucking idea. It never ends.
Of course, I’m just joking! Rainbows, unicors, everything beautiful, everything lovely, or everything lovely, everything beautiful. I always get those the wrong way around. Please hire me, I too need to eat :)
Anyway, onwards. Fucking stupid otters, that I obviously love and respect and have great admiration for, and am neverendingly inspired from. Urgh :)
What was I saying? Oh yes, onwards.
Somewhere Joe Rogan bursts into enormous LOLs
Somebody should do a supercut of Joe Rogan LOLs presented by John Oliver and Nicholas Cage being interviewed by Joe Rogan, on a plane sitting next to Leonardo DiCaprio disguised as Socrates. Finishes as they all leave the plane, they close the door and it says ‘Lao Industries’, zoom out, keep zooming out forever, we are all inside a marble which is being used in some marbles based game by giant interdimensional aliens. You are back in the room, sitting on front of Joe Rogan, you finish your boring story about why you stopped drinking alcohol and cigarettes. And you still have to write this blog post that everyone will complain about for being confusing.
Hurry hurry you are going to die, hey slow down, chill out. You have to slow down in order to go faster.
Shrug.
Onwards.
Yes, I’m going to have another coffee. Shut up it’s only number 3. That’s pretty good considering it’s late afternoon.
Holly shit it’s late afternoon.
To my knowledge, I did not use AI to write this article, even though I know it looks that way because of the sub headings, but it’s the only way I can get all this mess into some sort of order. Make an AI that can deal with all this shit gracefully. That really would be impressive. #
