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Vibe coding is irresponsibly building software through dice rolls, not caring what code is produced What about when engineers at the top of their game use AI tools responsibly to accelerate their work? I propose "vibe engineering"! simonwillison.net/2025/Oct/7/v...

simonwillison.netVibe engineeringI feel like vibe coding is pretty well established now as covering the fast, loose and irresponsible way of building software with AI—entirely prompt-driven, and with no attention paid to …

We need to acknowledge that working effectively with AI programming tools is HARD - they're unintuitive, full of traps and can churn out huge volumes of bad code if you let them But they can also greatly amplify your existing programming expertise if you know how to wield them

It turns out techniques used by top software engineering teams help accelerate coding agents as well: Version control, documentation, careful planning, automated tests, linters, strong code review culture, really thorough QA Sophisticated processes for professional engineers

Is the term "vibe engineering" kind of stupid, leaning into the gatekeeping distinction between "coders" and "real software engineers" It absolutely is. That's why I think it might stick!