Vibe coding

Why it matters

The mode rests on a single trade: understanding for speed. On disposable work that is a fair deal, since the aim is to see something run, not to own it, and reading code you will delete is wasted effort. The bargain sours when the output stops being disposable. Software no one has read cannot be safely maintained, extended or secured, and the understanding skipped has to be rebuilt later or done without. So the real hazard is seldom the mode itself. It is scope creep: the weekend project that gets demoed, then leaned on, until something no one can explain is running where it counts.

In practice

Someone spins up an internal dashboard over a weekend by describing it and taking whatever comes back. It works, so a team adopts it, and soon it sits inside a real workflow. Six weeks later it breaks, and even the person who built it cannot say why each fix makes things worse. As a throwaway it was fine. The trouble was that its move into production was never a decision anyone made.