How vibe coding Can Help IT Teams to Deliver Software Faster, Better, and Cheaper

Vibe coding is not a buzzword, but it's real and here. The Microsoft CTO, NVIDIA CEO, Meta CTO, and other tech leaders have already talked about the fact that in the next few years, most of the code will be written by AI.

1. What is Vibe Coding?

OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy coined the term "vibe coding" recently. It refers to software developers, aka coders or programmers, using AI to create code using natural language prompts rather than manual coding.

Skills required to become a vibe coder

Most vibe coding tools understand simple, plain, human-readable language called prompts. To start using Vibe coding tools, you only need to know how to ask questions and specify the tasks you want AI to do for you. The great thing about AI is that your prompt doesn’t have to be perfect; AI can figure it out.

If you really want to be good at it, you could master the art of GenAI prompting. Here is a detailed article on prompting: Craft Most Effective AI Prompts To Get The Most Out Of ChatGPT

Imagination and creativity are two other key skills when working with GenAI tools. The more you can imagine and be creative, the better results you will likely get from AI.

Technical knowledge is a plus when checking whether the code written by AI is good and free of bugs, errors, and security issues.

Here is a detailed article on C# Corner: What is Vibe Coding?

2. What are the benefits of vibe coding

Vibe coding has several benefits over traditional coding:

Faster development speed

Based on my two decades of experience, the coding phase of SDLC consumes almost 50% to 60% of the total development cycle. The main reason is learning to code and writing code manually. By using AI to write your code and tweak it using prompts, you could easily save 65% to 70% of coding time. Not only coding but vibe coding can be used to write test cases, test bugs, and improve code quality.

Anyone can code

Anyone can code: While it sounds unreal, it is a fact that anyone could become a vibe coder. You only need to learn one of the AI tools, bring your imagination, and write that into prompts. Now, startup founders, designers, and product managers can directly contribute to the coding phase.

Rapid prototyping

One of the most time-consuming tasks in SDLC is creating user interfaces and bringing ideas to visualization. Vibe coding tools allow you to create amazing and stunning visuals in minutes. It helps project owners to create prototypes and demo them without spending too much time working with graphics and UI designers.

Higher Quality

Higher Quality: Code quality remains one of the major challenges, and bad software is created due to the lack of expert developers. Industry experts create vibe coding tools and often follow the industry’s best practices and guidelines that make code more standard. For example, a tool like GitHub Copilot is created by Microsoft and GitHub product teams that are experts in writing industry-standard code.

Cost efficiency

All the above points lead to cost and time savings. Startups require less capital for initial development, extending the runway for market validation. Enterprises like JPMorgan Chase report 10-20% efficiency gains in engineering teams.

3. What are the risks of using vibe coding

While vibe coding has the above benefits, it also comes with some risks:

Obsolete Code

Vibe coding or GenAI tools generate content based on large language models or LLMs. Most LLMs need time to train on the latest data. For example, if Microsoft just released its latest version of the C# programming language, the GenAI tool such as GitHub Copilot or Cursor.ai may not have the latest version of the language.

Code quality and security vulnerabilities

Due to the nature of LLMs, a GenAI tool may generate bad code or code with bugs and security vulnerabilities. It is no different than searching Google and figuring out which article and code sample works for you. You want to make sure the code generated by these tools matches your quality standards.

Copyright Issues

LLMs are trained on public data, and some of the code generated by these tools could be trademarked by someone else. It is highly recommended to generate code using these tools, but to make sure, rewrite it in your own way. You can train a tool like Copilot on your style and ask it to write code in your style. You can also ask it about any security or IP risks.

May not work for complex projects

AI may make mistakes when working with large complex projects. It may make mistakes in business logic and related to any compliance or specific topics that it lacks understanding of industry-specific regulations.

IT Companies: If you want to train your team on Vibe Coding, here is a team of experts: Vibe Coders on Demand

3. How Vibe Coding Differs from Traditional Coding

In traditional coding, software builders (coders, developers, programmers) type code manually and perform manual debugging, optimization, review, and refactoring. This approach heavily relies on the developer’s experience and expertise. Often, inexperienced developers may end up writing inefficient code, and code review by a senior developer or peer review is needed. Traditional coding is a time-consuming and cumbersome process.

Vibe coding is writing code using generative AI that uses LLMs behind the scenes by typing simple prompts. Not only is vibe coding much faster, able to write thousands of lines of code and build fully functional websites and apps in minutes, but it also writes code that is more efficient, high-quality, and optimized.

Expert developers and companies often create Vibe coding tools that followthe industry’s best practices and standards.

Advantages of Vibe Coding

Vibe coding allows non-developers to build websites that are not too complex. All you need to do is provide a simple prompt with details of the functionality your website or app needs and let the AI generate code for you.
The biggest advantage of video coding is the speed of development. You can build full-fledged websites in just minutes, whereas traditional coding takes months.
Code quality is another benefit of vibe coding. Since vibe coding uses AI code generator, the chances of making mistakes are much less than a human developer.
AI can quickly create repetitive and boilerplate code, while developers can focus on high-level design and business solutions.

Advantages of Traditional Coding

Traditional coding allows developers and technical teams have more control over every aspect of code. Experience programmers and architect can design solutions their own way.
Vibe coding is now well suited for complex software development at least now right now. It can also not write some backend functionality that requires subject matter expertise.

4. What are the Challenges and Limitations of Vibe Coding

While vibe coding has many benefits, including faster development speed, it has several challenges and limitations.

AI code is difficult to understand and update manually.
AI can generate code with bugs and security holes.
AI may copy code that is copyrighted.
Code may be obsolete.
Difficult to find and fix bugs
Dependency on AI tools
You may not understand coding skills

Summary

AI has changed the way we build software. Not only can AI be your buddy to write code on your command, but it can also help improve code quality, find and fix bugs, improve performance, redesign code, add new features, write documentation, and more.

You can hire a team of experts to migrate your dev team to Vibe Development: Vibe Coders on Demand