Vibe Coding: To generate AI slop code without understanding, nor manually reviewing/altering said generated slop.
It literally means, produce low-quality work.
In the meantime, I am interviewing juniors who can’t write a while or for loop without looking on the internet…
The future is looking grim.
As a senior programmer I can’t write a for loop without the internet.
I can’t remember the last time I saw a job listing that didn’t expect me to be an expert in at least 5 languages. The best part is that halfway through the interview you learn that they are no longer using half the languages listed, and are “transitioning” towards 2 others that aren’t even listed. You want me to whip out examples written in Fortran, C++, Rust, JS, and some random word you claim is a language in 2 hrs without the internet? Bitch, I don’t even think I could get prewritten “Hello World” examples compiled in 5 different languages in 2 hrs, much less on machine that I have never seen before.What ramdon ass language could they possibly be pulling out of their ass for you to he completely unable to write a for loop? I’ve yet to see a for loop, or really any sort of loop that doesn’t look pretty much exactly like the standard C style for loop
for(int x = 0; x < z; x++) { }
If you have a C style language with iterator for loops like C++, Java and friends you almost certainly have this syntax
for(int x : numbers) { }
Python has exclusively iterator for loops with this syntax
for x in range(z)
The only real difference is that instead of a colon
:
you use thein
token.At best I can see the need for a quick refresh on what the exact syntax is but if your a senior any languages you actually use should have a template for junk like this. I don’t think I’ve manually written a loop in ages, I just type out
iter
for an iterator for loop or when I rarely need an indexfori
and the rest gets stamped out for me.If your being tested on random languages you can simply just not be familiar with a language. I haven’t touched Zig once but I’d totally be down to learn it. Everybody whos got a couple languages under their belt knows how easy it is to pick up new ones.
Plot twist, the company app is written in a Lisp-like language.
I still hate the “vibe” terminology.
What I would have liked it to mean: While coding, put on some music, and zone out to coding.
What it means now: Prompt an AI to generate working code and solutions.
I don’t get where the “vibing” comes in. I guess you don’t have to think about the technical details? And that’s vibing? Maybe it’s just unfamiliarity and lack of practice, but poking the AI via prompting and thinking about how you can influence it better doesn’t feel like you could zone in to or “vibe”.
Maybe it’s about letting go of reasoning and just going for it? Vibing in the sense of going with the flow?
It’s not the first terminology I find unfitting. I’m trying to accept that it is what it is, and that it just is what “we collectively” have decided to call it (or ran with).
I assume the term is referring to the person knowing only the vibes of the program they want to code rather than comprehending the details of what it needs to do.
Zoning out to coding I sometimes refer to as zen-coding, I love it just cuz it feels darn great. Until my body hurts from sitting/standing too long