The vibe coding revolution is here. I’ve been stuck trying to write up my own thoughts on what it means for someone like me to be able to create software in a few minutes, but David Pierce did a great job on the topic in this article at The Verge.
The article crystallizes much of what’s been going around in my head for the past five months since I vibe-coded my first thing (a browser extension for work) in early January. The irony is not lost on me that those same type of tools, and the cost of them, are the reason AWS told me and 16K others we didn’t have jobs anymore. 🫠
Since then, I’ve vibe-coded five more software projects that solve specific challenges for me (yes, I need to write about them!). No developer would ever make these because it just isn’t economically viable for them to do so; the addressable market is just too small.
This is indeed a software revolution; that’s not hyperbole.
I’ve been around long enough to see similar shifts, though never quite of this magnitude. In the early ’90s, new desktop publishing software allowed anyone to create sophisticated page layouts and print them on laser printers. Previously, this was the purview of people who knew how to use QuarkXPress and ran print presses. Suddenly, regular users could create things that were “good enough”, no pros needed. Vibe coding is this, but 1000x.
Now that we live in a world run by software, the impact of regular users being able to create their own apps is massive, and I’m able to do things I never could before. I used to say that after I retired, I’d learn how to be a developer to create the tools I always had in my head.
Now I don’t have to wait. 🚀