Vibe Coding: Useful Technique or Productivity Trap?

Andrej Karpathy tweeted about it in February 2025 and suddenly every developer had an opinion. "I just vibe code now. I barely even look at the code." That quote set off a weeks-long debate that still hasn't really resolved.

So what actually is it? And more importantly, when does it work?

The Core Idea

Vibe coding means working at a level of abstraction above the code. You describe behavior in plain language. AI writes the implementation. You review, redirect, and iterate. Your job shifts from writing code to directing it.

At its best, this is genuinely transformative. I built a command-line tool in Go — a language I barely know — in three hours by describing what I wanted and having Cursor implement it. I couldn't have written that code in a week on my own. The code worked. I shipped it.

When It Actually Works

• Prototypes where speed matters more than perfection
• Tools in unfamiliar languages or frameworks
• Boilerplate — CRUD, form handling, basic API routes
• Converting data formats or writing transformation scripts
• Getting past the blank page on new projects

When It Goes Wrong

A friend spent three weeks vibe coding an e-commerce checkout flow. Shipped it. Two months later discovered the payment intent wasn't being verified server-side. Anyone could modify the price client-side. This isn't an AI failure — it's a workflow failure. He reviewed the UI but not the security model.

Code you don't understand is a liability. You can't debug it when it breaks. You can't extend it when requirements change. You can't review it in a PR. Vibe coding is fine for exploration. Shipping code you can't read is a different thing entirely.

A Better Framework

Use vibe coding for velocity, then slow down for production. Prototype fast with AI. Once the prototype works, go through the code section by section. Remove what you don't need. Understand everything you ship. This isn't slow — it's still 3-5x faster than writing everything yourself.