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Vibe engineering

simonwillison.net

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Re: Vibe engineering

#331

Post by maplethorpe »

subarctic wrote: post #151

I just feel so discouraged reading this somehow. I used to have this hard-to-get, in-demand skill that paid lots of money and felt like even though programming languages, libraries and web frameworks were always evolving I could always keep up because I'm smart. But now with these people like Simon Willison writing about the new way of coding with these agents and multiple streams of work going on at a time and it so…

Come to game dev. I'm yet to see anyone make anything good with AI.

Like, where are all the amazing vibe-coded games we were promised? These guys should be eating my lunch, but they're not.

Re: Vibe engineering

#332

Post by computerex »

hollowturtle wrote: post #294

I don't get the obsession some tech people have to push the idea that this stuff accelerate your coding, increase your productivity. It's all about fast and faster output. In my experience LLMs have mostly produced gibberish oververbose code, surely faster than me, but my lower speed usually produce better code. I don't like this present state of things where we need to chat faster to quickly get out results and go f…

We live in an objective reality. LLM's help a damn lot in speed of development. As someone who has been coding since 5th grade for over 20 years who is known to be a LIGHTNING FAST implementor by many people I have been scaled ridiculously with LLM's. Genie is out of the bag, you have to go with the flow, adapt or else....

I am just as pissed as anybody else at the lack of certainty in the future.... Thought I had my career made. So it's not that I don't emphatize with engineers in my shoes.

Re: Vibe engineering

#333

Post by Arisaka1 »

subarctic wrote: post #151

I just feel so discouraged reading this somehow. I used to have this hard-to-get, in-demand skill that paid lots of money and felt like even though programming languages, libraries and web frameworks were always evolving I could always keep up because I'm smart. But now with these people like Simon Willison writing about the new way of coding with these agents and multiple streams of work going on at a time and it so…

I can't even begin to imagine how a 12-year old who discovered how empowering bending the machine to do your will through code feels when, over time, realize that their dream career has been reduced to being an LLM middleman.

Re: Vibe engineering

#334

Post by computerex »

razoorka wrote: post #307

I did a several-month experiment using Claude as the only engineer on a real SaaS side project (Node.js/React, prod-quality, full feature ownership). My observations: The quality of Claude’s output strongly correlates with how explicit and detailed the specs are. Markdown checklists, acceptance criteria, and clear task structure led to far fewer corrections and surprises. Most mistakes were never “creative hallucinat…

Same experience here.

Re: Vibe engineering

#335

Post by wsintra2022 »

zwnow wrote: post #255
simonw wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really sorry to hear this, because part of my goal here is to help push back against the idea that "programming skills are useless now, anyone can get an LLM to write code for them". I think existing software development skills get a whole lot more valuable with the addition of coding agents. You can take everything you've learned up to this point and accelerate the impact you can have with this new family of too…

What about the accessibility of software development? Its completely vanishing for people that can not afford to pay for these agents. It used to be a field where you could get a laptop from the scrapyard and learn from there. It feels pointless. Also agents do not invent things, the creativity part is gone with them. They simply use what they've already seen, repeat the same mistakes a person made a few years ago. I…

I feel your sentiment. However anyone with an interest in computers now has access to an LLM, which to me feels like an upgrade to having access to a modem and a search engine. Knowledge is power right?

Re: Vibe engineering

#336

Post by dak89 »

pierre_vannier wrote: post #269

Simon, I want to reach out since I want to express my disappointment regarding this thing you write here: "I propose we call this vibe engineering, with my tongue only partially in my cheek." Back in march 2025, you and I had a brief convo on X about this very term that came to my mind "Vibe Engineering": https://x.com/pierre_vannier/status/1904933441042317821 I also mentioned it in our podcast in April 2025: https:/…

I think he should have given you credit, you were clearly first and he responded to your tweet so he must have seen it! But he might have just forgotten he had the conversation with you about this, while still being more likely to "rediscover" the term since he had heard it before. Maybe a bit aggressive to not reach out to him privately first but in any case pretty cool that you actually invented a term that is now quite likely to be popular :)

Re: Vibe engineering

#337

Post by Hendrikto »

subarctic wrote: post #151

I just feel so discouraged reading this somehow. I used to have this hard-to-get, in-demand skill that paid lots of money and felt like even though programming languages, libraries and web frameworks were always evolving I could always keep up because I'm smart. But now with these people like Simon Willison writing about the new way of coding with these agents and multiple streams of work going on at a time and it so…

Your skillset will be even more in demand in a few years, when everybody will be looking for actual engineers to clean up the mess LLMs created.

Re: Vibe engineering

#338

Post by hollowturtle »

treve wrote: post #309
hollowturtle wrote: post #294

I don't get the obsession some tech people have to push the idea that this stuff accelerate your coding, increase your productivity. It's all about fast and faster output. In my experience LLMs have mostly produced gibberish oververbose code, surely faster than me, but my lower speed usually produce better code. I don't like this present state of things where we need to chat faster to quickly get out results and go f…

I think the general issue with software engineering discourse is that while our tools and languages may be the same, there's a massive gradient in tolerance for incorrectness, security, compliance, maintainability. Some of us are building prototypes, and others are building software with a 10 year horizon or work with sensitive personal data. So on the one side you get people that are super efficient cranking things…

I have yet to see in my life a prototypes that doesn't become production :) Btw my whole point wasn't on security and can't find a compelling reason to talk about it, it rather questions "faster results" as "better productivity" it isn't, and imo we should pause for a moment and focus on better tooling

Re: Vibe engineering

#339

Post by pkorzeniewski »

subarctic wrote: post #151

I just feel so discouraged reading this somehow. I used to have this hard-to-get, in-demand skill that paid lots of money and felt like even though programming languages, libraries and web frameworks were always evolving I could always keep up because I'm smart. But now with these people like Simon Willison writing about the new way of coding with these agents and multiple streams of work going on at a time and it so…

I wonder how this will affect the burnout rate among IT workers in the long-term, which already was quite high. I guess a lot of people force themselves (or are forced to by their company) to use LLM in fear of being left behind, even if they don't enjoy the process, but sooner or later the fatigue will catch up.

Re: Vibe engineering

#340

Post by [deleted] »

mettamage wrote: post #330

Didn't read the article, reacting to the title. To add as a data point: I've met founders that are business founders and are vibe coding entire businesses with React, Supabase and Netlify. LLMs allow for amazingly high fidelity interaction designs to receive funding and prove out certain PoCs. Whether his stuff will stay up in production remains to be seen.

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