AI-assisted coding is the electric-assisted cycling of software development
My premise here is that electric bikes don't just make cycling easier for existing cyclists—for many people they make cycling possible. I see many parallels with AI-assisted software development i.e., for existing software developers AI-assisted coding makes their job easier, for people who can't code, it makes software development possible. And I see both (electric bikes and AI coding) as good things.
Why I'm defending vibe coding (and electric-assisted cycling)?
Creating software using an AI-coding assistant, relying fully on the AI and without ever writing the code yourself is termed “vibe coding”.
I see a lot of comments and memes online related to vibe coding, typically pointing out that vibe coding can only get you so far (before even the AI can't maintain/update what it's created), or it's simply “bad” as the developer does not understand the code that's been created. And these things are true, yet they are only relevant if you're a professional software developer.
If you're not a professional software developer, and you just want to create an app for yourself that accesses a weather API and determines the best period to go cycling during the day, or a circuit training app that selects 10 exercises at random for you to do each day based on the equipment you have access to, then the fact that you don't understand the code that has been created by the AI is utterly irrelevant.
Is the generated code well commented, efficient, scalable, and does it embrace best practice? The answer to all these is simple: it… does… not… f**king… matter. There's only one thing that matters—does it solve the problem?
For many people, AI coding (like electric-assisted cycling) is the only option
I see more people cycling now than I did even just a few years ago. That's not exactly true (or at least it's hard to prove, I've not actually been counting), I guess what I mean is that I see a much broader variety of people cycling now than I used to.
I live in the UK, where cycling typically means a middle-aged guy, with enough disposable income to drop £3-5k on a bike (or bikes! all purchased via the Cycle to Work scheme, that are never going to be used to cycle to work, and weighs less than the roast dinner he ate the previous day), dressed in Lycra, and looking like he's training for the Tour de France, or at least like he's in an urgent rush to get somewhere. We know these people as Middle-Aged Men In Lycra (MAMILs).
More recently, while out on my bike, I've seen older people (yes, people, not just men!) wearing normal clothes—as if they don't care about the loss of efficiency due to their baggy t-shirts and flappy shorts. Not only that, but they're also sitting up straight on their bikes, and looking around at their environment, some of these fools are even smiling and chatting to each other (wasting oxygen that could be better used to help propel them forward), it's madness I tell you, madness!
Anyway, my point is that these new cyclists are typically on electric bikes. And if it's the electric bike that has encouraged enabled them to get outside for a few hours to explore their environment on a sunny Sunday afternoon, as opposed to sitting in front of the telly watching Cash in the Attic (other old-people shows are available) then I'm all for it.
Vibe coders should just learn to code
Damn right! And you should sell your car and walk everywhere, and I should learn how to spell “seperately” “sepratley” “separately”, and addicts should just stop taking drugs, and Trump should stop lying like the sack of sh… I digress.
The simple fact is that many people can't code. It might be an issue with not having time to learn, or that the return-on-investment on learning is not worth it i.e., maybe they only wanted to create that one bike-ride weather app, or circuit training app. Is that worth a month-long Python course? (And anyway, shouldn't Python developers learn real languages like assembly and machine code?)
Accept it or not, but for many people, coding (like spelling for me) is just not something they will ever get, it doesn't matter how much they try and learn it.
And anyway, why should they learn to code? Coding is a means to an end isn't it? Isn't the aim to create working software?
I've heard similar comments about electric-assisted cycling e.g., “it's cheating, they should just use a real bike”. And it's true, if they were hoping to use their electric bike during the Tour de France, it would indeed be classed as cheating, but I suspect this is not the aim in most cases. And a “real” bike? What does that even mean, do real bikes have suspension and gears? Is using a bike computer like a Garmin or Wahoo cheating?
Conclusion
In conclusion, if you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them… maybe you can hire The A-Team then give vibe coding a try. It's not bad, or wrong, or cheating, and there's no need to take a shower afterwards.
And if all goes well, you might create something that has never before existed, and I reckon that's probably a good thing… unless of course you created Truth Social, in which case… you can just f**k off.
