I despise the term “vibe coding”. It infantilizes the activity and encourages people to remain uneducated and uninformed about what they are doing. However, that’s the term people are sticking with, and so I want to describe the spectrum of vibe coding, because not all vibe coders are created equal

There are 3 types

1. Engineers
2. Technical People
3. Non-technical People

The difference between an engineer “vibe coding” and a non-technical person vibe coding could not be more different.

Who are the engineers?

• SWE/CS
• Other types of engineers that have had exposure to programming, systems, etc.

Who are the technical people?

• Product and program managers
• Designers
• Other tech professions where exposure things like APIs, infrastructure, etc. is common

Who are the non-technical people

• Anyone else that isn’t in either of the lists above

Engineers are not vibe coding when they are relying on AI for code synthesis. They do not have to rely on vibes. They actually know what they are doing, and what they are looking at. This is not vibe coding at all

Technical People are not entirely dependent on vibes. They can write a requirements doc. They can design a UI. They know what the limitations of technology are (to some extent). They may have to rely on vibes for how the code looks, but they know how the overall software should function

Non-technical People are the true vibe coders. They don’t know what the code should look like or what it should do. They don’t know what a div is, or how APIs work. They have to function purely on vibes. Their vibe coding skills are unburdened by actually knowing how things work. They cannot rely on information, it has to be purely vibes driven: “is the app working when I click things?”

If you’re not relying on vibes when you’re coding with AI, let’s not call it vibe coding