Vibe coding is the ability to create software programs without knowing how to code.

Using natural language alone, we can use a variety of tools to prompt our way to a working piece of software.

Just last week, I created 5 small applets to automate mundane tasks.

Four out of five worked surprisingly well. The fifth? A total nightmare.

My background programming calculators in assembly language in middle school helps me get out of some technical jams that might stop others, but I wouldn’t call myself a full-stack engineer.

At the moment, vibe coding allows us to do just enough to be truly dangerous. To fool ourselves momentarily into thinking that we could prompt our way to the next Spotify or Netflix.

But the minute things get complex (and they always get complex), we’re standing alone in rural China without a translator.

It’s tantalizing, maddening, exciting, and terrifying. And we’ll need skilled engineers for the foreseeable future.

Still… Getting closer.