The Rise of Vibe Coding
How AI is Turning 'Good Vibes Only' into Working Code - No Developer Thinking Needed
Imagine telling your computer what you want to build in plain English, watching it write the code for you, and only intervening when something breaks. Welcome to 'vibe coding' - where developers are vibing while AI does the coding.
Coined by former Tesla AI director and OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy in February 2025, vibe coding represents a fundamental shift in how software gets built. This article explores the vibe coding phenomenon, its implications for developers at all levels, and whether it represents the promising future or concerning decline of software craftsmanship.
We'll dive into what vibe coding actually is, how it's being used across the industry, hear from its proponents and critics, and consider what it means for the future of programming.
What is Vibe Coding? (And Why Karpathy's Tweet Went Viral)
In February 2025, Andrej Karpathy casually dropped a tweet that would spark intense debate throughout the tech world: "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."
What exactly did he mean? Karpathy went on to describe a workflow that many developers had already started adopting but hadn't named yet: "I'm building a project or webapp, but it's not really coding — I just see stuff, say stuff, run stuff, and copy paste stuff, and it mostly works."
The vibe coding workflow looks something like this:
Describe what you want in plain English to an AI tool
AI generates the code
Accept the changes with minimal review
Run the code to see if it works
If errors occur, copy-paste them back to the AI
Let the AI fix its own mistakes
Repeat until it works
This approach fundamentally differs from traditional programming, where developers write code line by line, deeply understand the syntax and logic, and meticulously debug issues.
The tools powering this revolution include Cursor, GitHub Copilot, and newer offerings like Composer with Sonnet. These AI assistants have become so advanced that some developers primarily interact with them using voice commands via tools like SuperWhisper, barely touching the keyboard.
Great Vibe Divide: Who's Loving It, Who's Hating It
As with any transformative technology, vibe coding has created a sharp divide in the developer community.
The Vibers: From Non-Coders to Senior Devs
On one side, we have enthusiastic adopters across all experience levels:
"I'm no expert software engineer, yet AI has been a miracle for me to dabble in game development," shares one Reddit user. "It can structure your learning and explain things like you're 5."
Surprisingly, it's not just beginners embracing the vibe. As one consultant revealed, "I've had some incredibly straightforward projects that were entirely 'vibe coded' at a rate of $150 per hour. If an AI can handle the task without long-term implications, why should I invest time in crafting high-quality code?"
Companies adopting this approach report a 30% reduction in developer turnover, as the culture shifts to prioritize well-being and creativity over technical minutiae.
The Critics: "But Do You Actually Understand What You're Building?"
On the other side stand the skeptics, concerned about the long-term implications:
"That's quite a lengthy way to express the idea that programmers should comprehend the code they create," notes one critic. "I believe that Vibe Coding is ineffective because it fails to produce robust and maintainable systems."
Others point to concerning metrics: some projects built with vibe coding show a 4x growth in duplicate code and technical debt. As one developer put it, "Vibe coding is like buying a kit to build a race car, paying your drunk uncle who 'knows a thing or two about racing' to build the kit for you, then telling all your friends that you built it... then the first time you drive it, it turns out there's no oil in the car and the wheels haven't been tightened down."
Coding in the Wild: Real-World Examples
Despite the concerns, vibe coding is making waves across different segments of the industry.
The Weekend Warrior: Building Side Projects at Warp Speed
For hobby projects and personal experiments, vibe coding has been a game-changer. Developers report building functional prototypes in hours instead of days.
One Reddit user shared: "I don't know how to code but sometimes I get ideas that I'd like to see as a little app, and I just explain it, and a few minutes later I can use the app."
The Startup Scene: From Idea to MVP in Days, Not Months
Startups have embraced vibe coding to accelerate their path to market. Some report completing MVPs up to 10x faster than traditional development methods.
A product manager commented: "It's stupid useful to video out a prototype and send that to Dev instead of a PRD with REQs. I can go through the first back and forth myself without taking three weeks of meetings."
The Enterprise Experiment: Traditional Companies Testing the Waters
Even traditional enterprises are cautiously exploring vibe coding. While mission-critical systems remain the domain of traditional programming, companies are using vibe coding for internal tools, prototypes, and non-critical applications.
The Educational Shift: Learning to Prompt vs. Learning to Code
Perhaps most significantly, educational approaches are evolving. New developers are increasingly taught how to prompt AI effectively rather than focusing solely on syntax.
"Learning to code in 2025 is different," explains a coding instructor. "We start with system design concepts and prompt engineering, then dive into the details as needed."
Vibe Shift: How Developer Roles Are Evolving
Vibe coding isn't just changing how code gets written—it's transforming the entire profession.
From Code Writer to AI Collaborator
Developers are shifting from writing every line of code to collaborating with AI. This requires a different skill set focused on describing problems clearly, reviewing AI-generated solutions, and understanding system architecture.
As one industry professional put it: "As an industry-professional, this is exactly how I use AI. It can provide snippets, it's up to me as a thinking human being to decide whether the snippet will do the job as I want it to, or whether I need to ask the question in a different way."
The New Essential Skills: Prompt Engineering & System Design
Technical skills are evolving accordingly. The ability to craft effective prompts has become as valuable as coding skills. Understanding how different components interact is now more important than writing each component from scratch.
The table below shows how the required skills are shifting:
Will 'Traditional Coding' Become a Specialized Niche?
Some predict that traditional coding—writing every line by hand—might become a specialized skill for performance-critical or security-sensitive applications.
"It reminds me of how assembly language programming became a niche skill," notes one senior developer. "Most people will use higher-level abstraction, but those who understand the details will still be needed."
Learning to Code in 2025: Start with Prompts, Not Syntax
For newcomers to the field, the learning journey has fundamentally changed. Many start by learning to craft effective prompts and understand AI limitations before diving into syntax details.
Future: Evolution or Degradation?
Vibe coding represents a fundamental shift in software development, transforming the developer experience and potentially democratizing software creation in unprecedented ways.
As AI takes over more of the syntactical heavy lifting, will the essence of programming shift from knowing how to code to knowing what to build?
Rather than the death of programming, vibe coding might represent its next evolution—freeing human developers to focus on creativity, design, and solving the problems worth solving.
Have you tried vibe coding? What was your experience? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
What's Your Take on Vibe Coding?
The future of coding!
Useful for prototyping only
Concerning trend for the industry
I'm still forming my opinion
Discussion Starters
What was your first vibe coding project?
Which AI coding tool has impressed you the most?
What skills should developers focus on in the age of AI coding assistants?