Why is “vibe coding” suddenly treated like a bad thing?
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Feels like people are using it as a shortcut to dismiss products they don’t like.
At the end of the day, devs have always relied on tools to go faster, frameworks, libraries, Stack Overflow, templates, all of it. AI is just the next step in that chain. Typing code was never the hard part anyway. Understanding what to build, making the right product calls, and handling messy edge cases is where the real work is.
AI doesn’t change good vs bad builders, it just changes speed.
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I agree partly but seeing typing code was never the hard part downplays how much junior devs actually learn through implementation.
@craig_bennett1 Yep, you are right. Unfortunately AI-coding tools mostly affect juniors. That is why the number of developers with strong knowledge will decrease over time.
Yes, vision, knowledge of UI/UX and flows, architecture are still needed. Debugging is still needed, but we get the wonderful gift of saving hours of tedious code writing, syntax mistakes hunting...
@memsoph Completely agree with that. From a product design perspective, I also see issues on both the design and engineering sides. The real shift is that a lot of execution work is getting faster, but it doesn’t replace vision, UX thinking, architecture, or debugging.
At the same time, it’s definitely impacting the job market, some employers now assume tools can replace whole skill sets, which isn’t really true.
On the flip side, for entrepreneurs it’s actually a big win. You can validate ideas much faster with a small setup, and then scale properly once there’s real traction.
@orkhan_ilyas yes. And then there's the challengin and daunting thing of letting the world know and care ...
I think the problem is not “vibe coding” itself, but when people confuse it with engineering.
Using AI to move faster is totally fine. We already use frameworks, libraries, templates, Stack Overflow, code generators, etc. AI is just a much more powerful version of that.
But there is a difference between:
“AI helped me write code faster”
and
“I don’t really understand the system, but the demo works.”
That second case is where people get skeptical. Especially when the product has no clear architecture, no edge-case handling, no security thinking, no performance understanding, and no plan for maintenance.
So I agree: AI does not make bad builders good or good builders bad. It amplifies both. A strong builder with AI can move extremely fast. A weak builder with AI can ship broken things extremely fast.
The label “vibe coded” becomes unfair when it is used just to dismiss a product someone dislikes. But it becomes fair criticism when the product clearly shows that nobody really understood what was being built.
@konstantin_gerasimenko Good point!
I don't think vibe coding is being treated as a bad thing. What's changing is that people are realizing it's not the same as software engineering.
For prototypes, internal tools, and validating ideas, vibe coding is incredible. The criticism usually starts when prototype code becomes production code without proper reviews, testing, security checks, and maintainability considerations.
The real question is: where do you draw the line between "good enough to validate an idea" and "needs engineering discipline"? I feel that's where most teams are still figuring things out. 🤔
I think its more scaling that might be a problem , and i mean "might" but tools are tools , it is stupid in my opinion not to use them . It's like saying cars are bad we must use horses !!!
@pranay19 Exactly!
For sure, it’s wrong when companies fire people and assume AI will solve all their problems.
A better approach is to use AI to increase company work speed and effectiveness.
Fully agree. Good engineering is about architecture, product thinking, and handling the hard edge cases. Most of the actual code is boilerplate. AI just takes that part off your plate.
The one thing that worries me is what this means for junior developers. Most good engineers got good by doing the boring stuff first, getting feedback from seniors, making mistakes on low stakes tasks. If one senior can now do the work of three, those entry points shrink. And I am not sure we have figured out what replaces them.
Vibe coding can help you move fast in early stages, but without clear systems, reviews, and responsibility, it doesn’t translate into maintainable or scalable products. AI speeds up execution, not coordination.
Loomal
Agree the dismissal is lazy. AI is another productivity multiplier, same as everything before it.
The backlash, when it's valid, usually points at code that works in demos but breaks in the unglamorous parts of production: auth edge cases, secret management, handling 2FA, integrating with services that require verified identity. These are the unsexy pieces vibe coding tends to leave as 'I'll figure it out later' problems.
The AI isn't bad at generating that code — developers just don't know to ask the right questions because they've never had to think about this layer before. The code looks fine. The architecture under it isn't.
So the backlash is misdirected, but the underlying concern is real. Moving fast is easy. The infrastructure that makes things actually run reliably is still mostly your job to understand.