Written by: Haotian
After a week of using Vibe Coding, I created an RSS aggregator and AI-powered interpretation website to replace my previous paid app with a poor user experience. It was quite satisfying. However, this process also gave me a new, "demystified" understanding of Vibe Coding, which I'd like to share:
1) Vibe Coding is essentially an efficiency-enhancing tool that multiplies rather than adds. For "super individuals" who already possess product thinking, logical abilities, or even a certain level of programming skills, it can transform an individual into a team, greatly expanding their capabilities.
But ultimately, it's just an enhancement skill, not a survival skill. Understanding Vibe Coding won't turn you from an ordinary job into a high-level executive at a big company with a million-dollar annual salary, and not understanding Vibe Coding won't necessarily leave you behind by the times.
2) Vibe Coding only lowers the barrier to entry, but it doesn't increase the upper limit of capabilities. For example, in the process of developing an RSS reader, it's very impressive at first, as a single command can generate a usable interface, but adding complex requirements later on becomes troublesome.
For example, when trying to automatically deduplicate RSS feeds or connect to backend storage and optimize its structure, it might present a bunch of seemingly professional but obviously buggy questions. The AI will jump between several seemingly complex but ultimately unsolvable solutions, burning through your tokens. In the end, it might turn out that an experienced programmer could solve the problem with just a few lines of code and some environment configuration.
3) Vibe Coding's tools iterate very quickly, so there's no need to spend time learning them; initially, it was just copying and pasting code for AI to handle, but now the IDE directly embeds AI into the interface, and in the future, even front-end, back-end, and environment configuration may become foolproof.
If you learn to write sophisticated prompts and some practical skills at a certain stage, those skills may become useless with a major platform update.
4) Vibe Coding isn't a savior for many; in fact, it can be a crisis. After completing this RSS project, I started to find various problems with its reading experience. For example, how often are RSS feeds updated? What happens if they expire? How much of the original text detail should the AI summary retain? How should the content from multiple sources be ordered? How can my reading experience be optimized? See? A whole host of questions arose. But solving these problems has almost nothing to do with coding skills; it requires a clearer understanding of product and aesthetics.
There's a saying that goes, "When the cost of code generation approaches zero, the value of the code itself also becomes zero." Therefore, the real deciding factor lies in having product taste and the ability to close logical loops. The truly valuable programmers of the future will be a combination of product manager, architect, and designer; the era of simply making a living by coding may truly be over.
5) Vibe Coding is a double-edged sword in the Crypto space. The advantage is that Crypto natives' learning ability and research drive enable them to use and master this skill more quickly than the average person, build their own data analysis platforms, analyze transactions independently, and try AI Trading logic. However, it also attracts a large number of people who do not understand the underlying blockchain, using AI to generate a bunch of code that appears to work on the surface but is actually full of hidden dangers.
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Finally, let me say this: Vibe Coding isn't revolutionary; it's essentially an efficiency tool. It's the same principle as how people have used Excel macros, Photoshop actions, and Notion templates over the years. Those who understand it double their efficiency, and those who don't don't have much of a problem.
Don't idolize it, but don't panic either. Just stay curious and try it out in moderation.
