My rant on Vibe Coding

I hate vibe coding.

I hate that it's a thing and that it's becoming standard.

I got into CS because I enjoy writing code, solving problems, and debugging. I enjoy accumulating different skills, ideas, programming languages, frameworks, and libraries to solve different problems. You're growing as a programmer with every new tool you use.

Vibe coding makes all of this meaningless. There's no point in learning a new tool really well anymore because AIs can just do it for you instantly.

The existence of vibe coding makes it feel meaningless to write any code yourself. Why spend ten minutes writing and testing different functions when AI can do it for you almost instantly!

This is the sad reality for someone who enjoys coding. There really is less of a reason to write any code yourself and it often feels meaningless to do so.

It feels like comparing an artist's work to AI art. Obviously the AI on paper can spit out a good looking drawing in milliseconds, making the artist's work seem obsolete. However, it's not in the artistic spirit to have AI make all your art. Besides, even though AI art looks good on paper, it feels quite soulless to look at.

With code, it might seem like as long as the code works within its purpose, it doesn't matter how it is written. However, vibe coding still leads to a lot of weird stylistic choices and can feel "soulless" to do.

Does this make any sense at all? I don't really know. Perhaps I'm just anti AI. Or perhaps I'm just annoyed it's impossible to catch up in this field without doing something that feels like cheating.

I know I just said I hate vibe coding in this blog, but I am experimenting with it in my free time now. Maybe I'll write about it some day but I have to admit that it opens up a lot of possibilities and can be useful with moderation.