Ask HN: Is 'vibe coding' the future of software development?"

#1

Post by cyberneticc » Fri, Apr 18, 2025, 2:48 PM UTC

I've been thinking about the effects of 'vibe coding' on software development.

Imagine a two-phase approach: First, business users work with AI coding agents to specify and create functional prototypes without writing code ("vibe coding"), then developers take over to rebuild and productionize these prototypes.

This could potentially:

- Speed up initial development by bypassing traditional requirements gathering

- Allow business users to directly express their needs as working prototypes

- Let developers focus more on architecture, performance, security, and complex features

- Create more collaborative relationships between business and technical teams

Is this just the naive thinking of a software _user_ who doesn't understand how software development works, or could this application of vibe coding change how things are done?

Re: Ask HN: Is 'vibe coding' the future of software development?"

#2

Post by colesantiago » Fri, Apr 18, 2025, 2:53 PM UTC

I have vibe coded software (I think that works) for airplanes that would be useful for them.

I tested this on my machine so it should be good to use and sell to airliners.

I am assuming that the airplane devs would take over my project when I sell it over.

If you were an airliner, would you buy my vibe coded software?

Re: Ask HN: Is 'vibe coding' the future of software development?"

#3

Post by JohnFen » Fri, Apr 18, 2025, 3:10 PM UTC

I think "vibe coding" is really just a weird sort of 4GL, and expect that it will occupy the same space as 4GLs do: for use by non-devs who want to produce custom software, and for quick-and-dirty one-off things.

Re: Ask HN: Is 'vibe coding' the future of software development?"

#4

Post by chrisrickard » Fri, Apr 18, 2025, 3:13 PM UTC

I think at a high level you’re correct.

But no matter how much “vibe” is in the code, businesses still need to create, validate, review, and approve software requirements.

This is what we help with at Userdoc.fyi - AI augmented requirements, where humans are the input and the glue, but AI does the heavy lifting.

You then integrate the requirements into Cursor, Copilot, Aider, whatever - and then use vibe coding to build POC, and perhaps vibe engineering to take it to production.

Re: Ask HN: Is 'vibe coding' the future of software development?"

#5

Post by joshaustintech » Fri, Apr 18, 2025, 3:14 PM UTC

In my opinion, compiler-driven development is the better future:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joshaustintech_programming-la...

Re: Ask HN: Is 'vibe coding' the future of software development?"

#6

Post by kammersgasrd » Sat, Apr 19, 2025, 11:07 AM UTC

Yes, I think you are right. I use vibe coding for AI prototyping. And then when we know what we want, we can code it the “right” way to make it production ready.