Not all AI-assisted programming is vibe coding (but vibe coding rocks)
March 21, 2025
Vibe coding is having a moment. The term was coined by Andrej Karpathyjust a few weeks ago (on February 6th) and has since been featured in the New York Times, Ars Technica, the Guardian and countless online discussions.
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.
Vibe coding is not the same thing as writing code with the help of LLMs!
Source: Not all AI-assisted programming is vibe coding (but vibe coding rocks)
There are few more experienced and insightful voices in working with LLMs as a software engineer than Simon Willison.
He draws the distinction between a sort of Yoloing with LLMs, letting them generate code then simply using that, and software engineering with LLMs:
We need to consider performance, accessibility, security, maintainability, cost efficiency. Software engineering is all about trade-offs—our job is to pick from dozens of potential solutions by balancing all manner of requirements, both explicit and implied.
There’s definitely a place for both.
