He had Claude essentially create a 300MB json file and was doing all of the data processing on that data directly.
It never occurred to him, or Claude, that there were other ways to operate on that data. It took me less than 10 minutes to get that processing time down to under a minute.
These are the type of issues that worry me about vibe coding.
Now, he makes small apps that scratch his own itches, while everything is fresh in his mind and he can clarify or learn “hmm, that’s not actually what I want” and the cost is some tokens and the occasional job that runs in 3 hours instead of not existing at all.
I think it is great that he now has this capability, but a total ignorance of software engineering is going to continually bite this type of user. Instead of questioning Claude's solution, my friend thought he just needed a faster computer.
He was also using very sketchy Python imports when much safer, more mature options are available. Not knowing that you shouldn't use just any random Python package is a ticking time bomb... especially when his machine is connected directly to his corporate intranet.
Don't worry, I'm sure IT would never give this manager priveleged access to systems permissions.
Another contributing factor to rising consumer electronics prices due to vibed up coding is just what we needed.
You could have done it with Claude in 1 minute :) It probably never occurred to the VP to ask Claude for performance optimizations