They got something on the screen
You better get used to vibe coding. Not because it’s good. Not because it’s safe. Not because the people doing it have any sense of what they’re doing.
But because...it’s here.
People have seen the trick now. Describe an idea, press enter a few times, and get something on the screen. Maybe the code is a mess. Maybe it's insecure. Maybe the database schema looks like it was designed by someone huffing glue.
Doesn’t matter. All they know is: they got something working. That feeling is not going away.
Hence, vibes.
For non-technical people, software used to be a brick wall. Now it’s a barbed fence. It's still annoying. It's still easy to break. And in some cases, it's still dangerous. But it's not impossible anymore.
Yes, blind trust in an LLM is a terrible engineering strategy. LLMs lie. LLMs guess. They confidently create new problems while trying to solve the current problem. The best metaphor I've seen for LLMs is that they're the reflecting pool in the myth of Narcissus. Always eager to tell you that you're infallible, despite the evidence.
But that is not an argument that vibe coding goes away or "fails." It's more an argument that people need guardrails. They need us, the curmudgeons, to say "that's not how it's done; this way will save your bacon."
Sneering at vibe coders is mostly ego. The better approach, in my opinion, is teaching them where the cliffs are. Stupid stuff like ensuring that you check the signature on a webhook to ensure it's authorized. Knowing that SQL injection is even a thing and what to do about it.
It may seem like they need to know all of the things that you know, but they don't. And they're not likely to care. Why? Because they got something on screen.
Vibe coding isn't going away because it gives people leverage they didn't have before. It gives them the potential to create something they couldn't before. Hell, it gives them something they've never felt before (don't forget how powerful your first "holy shit it works" was).
A lot of it will be junk. Some of it will work. Some of it will become a real business while serious developers debate the LLMs architecture choices.
Doing so is a waste of time. It's better to just accept reality and adapt. Vibe coding isn't going away. If anything, it will become more common and entrenched as "how things are done" over the years.
If you're an engineer who understood this stuff before LLMs, instead of fighting, it's better to ask "of all the things I know, what is the best thing I can teach someone who self-identifies as a 'vibe coder' to keep them out of trouble?"
Instead of scolding, consider that while they may be vibe coding today, if you guide their steps without being a dick, there's a damn good chance they'll show interest in learning how to do this stuff for real.
But if you just attack and denigrate? They're not going to listen to a damn thing you say and this snowball keeps on a rollin'.
The genie is out and no one is putting it back. Instead of getting panicked and stressed about the old-way-of-things going poof, focus on how you can translate your knowledge and wisdom into something legible for those just getting started.
Load your rifle and get back to the trenches, soldier. We ride at dawn.