The term "vibe coding" was coined recently by OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy. It refers to the practice of software developers, aka coders or programmers, using AI to create code using natural language prompts rather than manual coding. Today, anyone who can type a prompt into AI tools like Copilot, ChatGPT, or apps like Lovable.dev and Cursor AI can not only create code but also create fully functional websites and apps in almost any programming language. The AI tools behind the scenes use natural language prompts to generate code via large language models (LLMs). The AI that generates content, including code, is also called generative AI or GenAI.
Skills required to become a vibe coder
Most vibe coding tools understand simple, plain, human-readable language called prompts. To start using Vibe coding tools, you only need to know how to ask questions and specify the tasks you want AI to do for you. The great thing about AI is that your prompt doesn’t have to be perfect; AI can figure it out.
Here is a simple prompt written in V0 (https://v0.dev/):
![vibe coding prompt]()
The output will create the complete code for the app. You can continue to modify your app by giving different prompts until you get the desired results. Once satisfied, you can download or deploy the code directly to your GitHub or cloud services.
![vibe coding screen 1]()
![vibe coding screen 2]()
If you want to be good at it, you could master the art of GenAI prompting. Here is a detailed article on prompting: Craft Most Effective AI Prompts To Get The Most Out Of ChatGPT
Imagination and creativity are two other key skills when working with GenAI tools. The more you can imagine and be creative, the better results you will likely get from AI.
Technical knowledge is a plus when checking whether the code written by AI is good and free of bugs, errors, and security issues.
What are the benefits of vibe coding
Vibe coding has several benefits over traditional coding:
Faster development speed
Based on my two decades of experience, the coding phase of SDLC consumes almost 50% to 60% of the total development cycle. The main reason is learning coding and writing code manually. By using AI to write your code and just tweak it by using prompts, you could easily save 65% to 70% of coding time. Not only coding but vibe coding can be used to write test cases, test bugs, and improve code quality.
Startups that are building their new projects (apps or websites) can easily create prototypes and UI/UX, and even code behind, in just a few hours. This is something that could have taken months and months using manual development with designers and developers. Writing boilerplate code and repetitive tasks helps save developers time to focus on high-level design and problem-solving.
Anyone can code
Anyone can code: While it sounds unreal, it is a fact that anyone could become a vibe coder. All you need is to learn one of the AI tools, bring your imagination, and write that into prompts. Now, startup founders, designers, and product managers can directly contribute to the coding phase. However, let us not take away from software engineers and business experts. When you need backend coding related to your business logic, you will still need experts.
Rapid prototyping
One of the most time-consuming tasks in SDLC is creating user interfaces and bringing ideas to visualization. Vibe coding tools allow you to create amazing and stunning visuals in minutes. It helps project owners to create prototypes and demo them without spending too much time on working with graphics and UI designers.
Higher Quality
Higher Quality: Code quality remains one of the major challenges and creates bad software due to the lack of expert developers. Vibe coding tools are created by industry experts and often follow the industry’s best practices and guidelines that make code more standard. For example, a tool like GitHub Copilot is created by Microsoft and GitHub product teams that are experts in writing industry-standard code.
Cost efficiency
All the above points lead to saving cost and time. Startups require less capital for initial development, extending runway for market validation. Enterprises like JPMorgan Chase report 10-20% efficiency gains in engineering teams.
What are the risks of using vibe coding
While vibe coding has the above benefits, it also comes with some risks:
Old content
Vibe coding or GenAI tools generate content based on large language models or LLMs. Most LLMs need time to train on the latest data. For example, if Microsoft just released its latest version of the C# programming language, the GenAI tool such as GitHub Copilot or Cursor.ai may not have the latest version of the language.
When using a GenAI tool, you may want to make sure that you ask and tell it what language or framework version you want the tool to generate content on.
Code quality and security vulnerabilities
Due to the nature of LLMs, a GenAI tool may generate bad code or code with bugs and security vulnerabilities. It is no different than searching Google and figuring out which article and code sample works for you. You want to make sure the code generated by these tools matches your quality standards.
IP risks
LLMs are trained on public data, and some of the code generated by these tools could be trademarked by someone else. It is highly recommended to generate code using these tools but to make sure rewrite it in your own way. You can train a tool like Copilot on your style and ask it to write code in your style. You can also ask it for any security or IP risks.
Vibe coding can make you dumber
Using too many vibe coding tools could lead to not learning new skills and risks of not understanding the coding and its quality.
May not work for complex projects
AI may make mistakes when working with large, complex projects. It may make mistakes in business logic and be related to compliance or specific topics because it lacks an understanding of industry-specific regulations.
Conclusion
Vibe coding is the new way to code using AI. It provides faster, manual code development and can help write high-quality, industry-standard code in minutes. This article explained the basics of vibe coding and its benefits.
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