vibe-coding

In a recent post, I commented on how Simon Willison wouldn't have agreed with the definition of vibe coding shared by the author. So I thought I link to his post as well.

I’m concerned that the definition is already escaping its original intent. I’m seeing people apply the term “vibe coding” to all forms of code written with the assistance of AI. I think that both dilutes the term and gives a false impression of what’s possible with responsible AI-assisted programming.

Here's a snippet of the original intent by Andrej Karpathy.

There’s a new kind of coding I call “vibe coding”, where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists. It’s possible because the LLMs (e.g. Cursor Composer w Sonnet) are getting too good. Also I just talk to Composer with SuperWhisper so I barely even touch the keyboard.

Vibe coding was never meant as a means to push critical code to production. Simon Willison talks about uses in low-stakes projects, and to consider the security of the code produced by LLMs.

The term vibe coding and the act of vibe coding have been popping up all around me. Stefano Marinelli writes about how vibe coding will rob us of our freedom and I'm inclined to agree.

Many developers are terrified of losing their jobs for this very reason: AIs sometimes program better than them. And, in my opinion, they are right to be afraid. But I'm more afraid of a world (and not just in IT) where code will depend exclusively on the companies that sell us AIs.

I don't think it's too hard to imagine a world where non-programmers vibe code their product or service and hire developers by the hour to squash bugs. The gig economy for developers?. That is if there are any developers around still capable of writing code. I would assume there would be a shift in skill from merely wiring code to bring code reviews, which is arguably harder to master.

Stefano Marinelli defines vibe coding as:

this methodology (if we can call it that) where developers, pressured by deadlines, are no longer trained on code structure, but on the "vibe" – that is, on giving the right prompts to AIs and testing only if the output seems to work.

I can see Simon Williston disagreeing with this definition.

Another thing that popped into mind is that those in favour of using LLMs to generate large quantities of code frequently justify the technology claiming how productive it makes them. However, every productivity boost only means the company needs one less full time developer. Going back to the original post, the author wrote a follow-up to address some of the criticism aptly named When We Become Cheerleaders for Our Own Demise.

Discovered via Andreas from 82MHz.