Good Vibes (No Coding) Only

Every creative person knows the frustration of a brilliant idea held back by a lack of technical skill.

What if you could build the concept out without writing a single line of code? This is the promise of “vibe-coding,” a revolutionary approach where natural language prompts are transformed into functional software in mere hours. This new paradigm is unlocking a world of rapid prototyping and innovation for non-coders. But as I discovered on my own journey from curious designer to AI-assisted builder, this incredible power comes with a hidden cost: the code it creates is often a chaotic, unmaintainable mess.

This article explores that tension - weighing the opportunities of a new creative freedom against the very real limitations that could stop you in your tracks.

New Tools

Like many, the term ‘vibe-coding’ came across my feed this year during my day to day scroll. As mentioned in my article Shorter Arcs, I have been trying my best to reduce the amount of time between me noticing an internal motivation and taking action. The clearest example of this change is my willingness to immediately experiment with (and potentially adopt) new tools. With a purchase of my Pixel 9 Pro, I received a full years access to Gemini AI (currently 2.5 Pro), which I have been trying to make the most of. Within the course of two months, I went from asking random questions, to incorporating AI into my workflow: generating article summaries, sorting data into spreadsheets and even creating custom ‘Gems’, where the model is trained on a collection of documents (in my case I used DJ user manuals).

It was not long before I discovered Gemini Canvas mode and the ability to use these spreadsheets to create interactive dashboards, all by using natural language. I began vibe-coding an interactive Mixxx Controller Explorer. This eventually led me to discover the limitations of solely relying on a chat-based coding process (I plan to write up a more comprehensive article on these challenges soon). Which is when I discovered Windsurf, an AI-powered code editor forked from VS Code (similar to Cursor), utilising an IDE to write and edit code in a more traditional developer environment, with directories and highlighted syntax.

I fancy myself a fairly tech-savvy designer, however I have a very limited coding experience, hindering almost any notion of coding the simplest software. Even edits to themes on basic HTML, CSS and Javascript websites sometimes stumped me for hours - requiring me to scour forums, how-to guides and Reddit posts to try and find a solution. In this sense, using AI tools for coding unlocks a completely new realm of creativity.

Why Vibe-Coding is a Game-Changer

After this I started reading a bit more on vibe-coding in general. Once you see Google and IBM are publishing vibe-coding guides, you understand this is a new step in the age of AI assisted computing. So far what I’ve gathered is that vibe-coding provides the following advantages to old-fashioned line-by-line development:

• Rapid Build Process: Build and test working demos (MVP) in hours instead of weeks, allowing for fast user feedback.
• Lower Risk and Cost: Cheaply experiment with new ideas and get market validation before committing significant resources.
• Focus: Automates repetitive tasks, freeing creators to concentrate on problem-solving, innovation, and user experience.
• Accessibility: Empowers non-technical people to build software using natural language, voice, or visual commands.

From ‘How’ to ‘What’

As Madhukar Kumar mentions in this Medium article, vibe coding is in many ways an evolution of programming; away from telling the system exactly how to do something with precise lines of code, towards telling it what to do with prompts in natural language. In one context, it does not matter how the software made as long as it works (Day 0 software development). In another, developers are not creating something from scratch, but instead working on millions of lines of code that have been already been written. This may be in order update, add features or make the software more secure (Day 1+ software development). Here, it does matter how things are made, with code needing to have a predictable and standardised structure.

The Four Horsemen of Bad Vibe-Code

It seems the main limitation with generating vibe code is this lack of clear, deliberate, and maintainable structures. This creates difficulties such as:

• Debugging Challenges: Debugging AI-generated code is inherently difficult because it often lacks a clear, predictable architectural structure, making it hard to trace the source of errors.
• Maintenance Hurdles: Long-term maintenance suffers because the code’s logic can be confusing. Without a well-maintained structure, developers struggle to understand the code, making updates and optimizations difficult.
• Inability to Handle Complexity: Vibe coding is unsuitable for complex or distributed applications (complex software that runs across multiple servers). These systems require a deliberate, planned-out architecture from the beginning, which is the opposite of the spontaneous nature of vibe coding.
• Hidden Security Risks: An unstructured and messy codebase makes code reviews significantly harder. This lack of clarity provides an ideal environment for vulnerabilities to hide and go unnoticed.

Coding Without Code: The Blueprint for the Future

Rather than a passing fad (see NFTs), I think this new form of software development is here to stay. Which makes me wonder - how will this workflow change in the next few years?

In his LinkedIn post, Marc Boscher reiterates one of the limitations already covered - that while using AI to quickly generate code seems great, it creates a big problem: someone has to fix that code when it breaks. He suggests a better approach is to create a middle layer - where instead of our prompts directly manipulating the code itself, we use AI to build a plan or “blueprint”. People can describe what they want, which is then translated into this plan by an AI ‘Blueprint Creator’. Then, an AI ‘Blueprint Reader’ reads those instuctions and handles all the complicated coding automatically in the background. This way, user can create powerful tools and connections between apps without ever having to touch or debug a single line of code.

Essentially the ‘rules’ for writing more structured code can be embedded into the AI communication layer between, ‘Blueprint Creator’ and ‘Blueprint Reader’.

A New Realm of Creativity

I understand seasoned developers see these new tools as ways to speed up their own workflows, but may scoff at the idea of completely non-technical people developing software using prompts alone. However I believe there is a large segment of technically inclined, but code illiterate creatives, who will be able to lower the cost of experimentation (both in terms of time and money), leading to an explosion of new applications, dashboards and interactive programs.

- Stav Rose