Vibe Coding Critique

Personal experiences with vibe coding, some users stepping back from pure AI generation, concerns about skill atrophy, dopamine-driven overestimation of output quality

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Developers are increasingly pushing back against the trend of "vibe coding," advocating for a return to more intentional workflows where AI serves as a flow-enhancing tool rather than the primary driver. Critics warn that the immediate "dopamine hits" of rapid code generation often create a delusion of productivity, masking the creation of unmaintainable "slop" that prioritizes sheer volume over long-term software health. This shift is driven by a desire to reclaim the craft of programming and a growing anxiety regarding skill atrophy, as developers fear losing the mental sharpness required to solve complex problems. Ultimately, while this hands-off approach may suffice for small internal tools, seasoned professionals argue that high-stakes production systems still demand rigorous human oversight and deterministic guardrails to remain viable.

7 comments tagged with this topic

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I’ve been vibe coding a lot over the past year or so, and I think I’m going to stop. In fact, I sort of want to challenge myself to see, can I go back to a sort of the fork in the road with the old copilot autocomplete workflow and really maximize that. Be in the drivers seat for most of the code being written, but find ways to use AI to really enhance the flow state / remove blockers. Tools only minimal actual code generation.
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I would be very impressed with someone who's been vibecoding "a lot" for about a year who could then go back to being fully in the loop for even 50%. I would even say I'd expect withdrawal symptoms at that point. The dopamine hits are core to why people even do vibecoding (or vibecoding-in-a-dress/spec-driven development) and why they tend to overestimate its output so much. Hell, it's core to all forms of LLM-assisted development (because it feels like magic), but most of the other forms are more value, less delusion.
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I actually don’t find vibe coding satisfying is one of the many reasons I’m going back. I feel a little of what you’re talking about, but I’m a nerd. I like to code. But I’m not dismissing your concern. Because it is one of the reasons I’m making this decision. I’m a professional. I’m not just here to feel good I’m here to do a good job over the course of a career. I think all in, when you think about writing good maintainable, software, learning, staying mentally sharp, and speed put together. Vibe coding could be less effective and maybe even in the aggregate “slower”.
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I am at a major company that is essentially vibe coding. I’ve shipped about 100k LoC this entire half and am toward top 10% of my team. I find it likely that either A. The code is absolute garbage and is speed for speed sake B. They’re using an internal model that is a generation beyond GPT 5.5 I say this because we’ve attempted to do something similar using the latest gen Claude models and a significantly larger team. The code is probably along the lines of millions LoC but is an absolute mess because of vibing. There’s a price you pay for speed
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I think vibe coding is okay for a small internal tool, dashboard, etc. but it’s definitely a no-go for a production running service.
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Q1 - How much effort did you put into deterministic guardrails like AST linters, etc? I find there’s a ton of slop unless hard guardrails are added, eg step 1 is just around syntax, step 2 is to enforce mental models You still need someone steering direction and have a logically consistent idea of what you actually want to build Q2 - I find that vibe coding really accelerates FE projects because it’s possible to run everything locally and check results For pure distributed infra backend more investments have to be made into the devloop to be able to shift left the feedback loop and decouple it from humans or real deploys
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How do you keep your skills if you no longer engage in the activity that keeps them sharp?