Vibe Coding: Pros and Cons

“Vibe coding” is one of those things that’s both good and bad at the same time.
It depends — and I know, that’s the worst answer ever.
So instead of saying “it depends,” I’ll break it down into pieces.

In this post, I’ll share my story, my experience — from working as a software engineer and teaching programming to hundreds of students.
You’ll hear my honest thoughts on whether beginners should use AI tools, how senior developers use AI, and even what my boss really thinks about vibe coding.

What is vibe coding?

The ‘vibe coding’ trend exploded when AI tools became mainstream. And I’m not gonna lie — I was totally clueless about what it really meant for a long time. Seriously! Maybe it’s because when I started about six years ago (in 2019) there was basically nothing like ChatGPT out there. And when it finally came out I wasn’t that interested. Why? Honestly, I had my habits I was too attached to. I used good old Stack Overflow like some coding Neanderthal, haha.

Maybe a year after the first release I finally decided to give it a try — because literally everyone was talking about it. I generated my first piece of code using AI: a recursive function. And… I was unpleasantly surprised. Because this was supposed to be the breakthrough, people were saying AI would replace developers — and what I got was sloppy code, still using var in JavaScript (which even a junior dev avoids like fire).

Of course, it took some time before I gave it a second chance. Either I was desperate because deadlines were chasing me, or curiosity finally won. Eventually I warmed up to AI. And from that point, it evolved so much — and on my side I matured enough to use it properly. Today I use various AI solutions like Google Gemini, ChatGPT and even DeepSeek.

Let’s be clear: vibe coding is basically coding using AI by describing in plain language what you want, then waiting for the generated code — so you don’t have to mess with the code or even fully understand it. But does it really work? From my experience and observations I have mixed conclusions.

Since I started coding “old-school” (I know, I know), I learned the basics from sources like MDN, W3Schools and FreeCodeCamp; I did countless courses and tutorials; I even have notebooks filled with JavaScript, CSS, HTML and Python notes. So, as someone with the foundations and years of experience, I use AI a bit differently. Then AI becomes your assistant — accelerating and easing the work. But watching my students, especially the lazy ones who just wanted to breeze through the course to get top grades, I ended up debugging AI-generated code for them. Because they didn’t know why it wasn’t working!

So what’s the difference? It’s this: someone who has vision and practice can verify that generated code; someone who’s just learning gets lost in the AI prompt forever — and that’s a shortcut, but is it a good one? 

Because when you learn to code with AI, it’s easy to fall into the ‘coding without understanding’ circle — that moment when you let the machine think for you.

And as I always tell my students: when you copy code from AI without knowing what it does, you’re not coding — you’re just being lazy.

Pros and Cons of AI Coding

Let’s start with the good side — because yes, there are some real pros of using AI in coding. Especially for beginners, it can be a total game-changer.

💜 PROS of vibe coding

1. It saves time.
   With AI, you can learn new things without hours of searching and researching. It’s honestly like Google on steroids, as people say. Instead of digging through dozens of Stack Overflow threads, you just ask, and it gives you an answer — instantly.
   
2. It’s your extra pair of eyes.
   You can use AI as your coding assistant — to review your code, catch errors, or explain what’s wrong. Even experienced developers don’t notice everything all the time, and AI can be that second brain that spots what you missed.
   
3. It helps you write small, verifiable functions.
   When you ask AI to generate short, simple pieces of code — things you can quickly test and verify — it’s genuinely useful.
   
4. It helps you explore new libraries.
   AI can check a library for you and show how to use it in your project. You don’t have to memorize the documentation for every framework or tool you’ll use once in your life.
   
5. It speeds up your workflow and boosts creativity.
   You can ask for project ideas, get unstuck when you don’t know what to build next, or get a full code review for free.
   
   

💡 Bite of Code tip: try using this kind of prompt when you want better-quality answers from AI:
“Act as a senior JavaScript developer. Do thorough research on best practices for writing clean, simple, and maintainable code. Review this piece of code and tell me if it could be improved or simplified.”

This way, you’ll get a much better response from AI — closer to what a real mentor would say.

So, if I had to summarize, the three biggest advantages of AI coding for beginners are:
✨ faster workflow,
✨ easier research,
✨ and instant code review support.

Those are also my most common and most effective ways of using AI in everyday work.

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⚠️ CONS of vibe coding

Now let’s talk about the dark side — because AI coding isn’t always sunshine and clean commits.

1. AI doesn’t always know what it’s talking about.
   Sometimes, AI simply doesn’t know the answer — and that’s totally fine.
   The problem is: it often pretends it does. Instead of admitting “I don’t know,” it confidently generates outputs that sound right but are completely wrong.
   And that’s dangerous, especially for beginners or junior developers who don’t yet have the skills to verify what’s true.
   You can easily spend hours trying to fix something that will never work — because AI gave you outdated or false code.
   
   I’ve seen this happen with my own students. Seriously. It was so obvious that everyone was using the same chatbot — because every student had the exact same bug.
   It turned out the chat pulled information from an old version of a library, and gave them a variable name that didn’t even exist anymore.
   One by one, they came to me saying “it doesn’t work and I don’t know why.”
   And I did know why — and also why they didn’t know.
   That’s the paradox of vibe coding: when you don’t fully understand what AI gives you, you can’t even tell what’s broken.
   
2. AI tools can fail — and then we fail with them.
   Sometimes chat tools go down or lag. Less often than before, but still.
   When that happens, many people freeze — because we’ve gotten used to the luxury of having an assistant who “does the thinking” for us.
   Reading documentation suddenly feels like climbing Everest.
   It’s a trap — we start relying too much on AI and lose the ability to solve problems on our own.
   
3. Vibe coding’s bad reputation.
   For some reason, the internet turned “vibe coder” into an insult.
   People accuse each other of it — even when they’re writing real, solid code.
   But honestly, being a vibe coder isn’t necessarily bad. It’s just a tool — it depends how you use it.
   If you don’t want to use AI, someone else will — and let’s be real, it’s hard to outpace AI in speed or idea generation.
   In fact, many job descriptions today literally say: “Experience using AI assistants to speed up your workflow.”
   So while some developers still laugh at vibe coding, the reality is that it’s already part of the job.
   People use AI to write emails, so why wouldn’t we use it to write code?
4. Security risks — sharing too much with AI.
   Another danger that many people don’t think about is what happens when you copy-paste your code directly into AI chats.
   Sometimes, that code contains API keys, passwords, or even parts of private company data — and once you send it, it’s gone.
   AI tools don’t always guarantee full privacy, and what you share can be stored or used for model training. 

So before you ask AI for help, make sure you understand what you’re sharing.
A small piece of “helpful context” can easily turn into a security leak.

In the end, AI coding is not the enemy — blind trust is.

If you understand how AI works, it can be your best assistant. But if you don’t, it can quietly become your biggest obstacle.

That’s why every junior web developer using AI should remember one thing: it’s not about how fast you get the code, but how much you understand it.

The goal is to learn, improve, and use AI wisely.

My Experience with Vibe Coding as a Developer and Lecturer

As someone who’s been coding for years — both on the front-end and back-end — I can honestly say I use AI coding tools on a daily basis.
Is that good or bad? Well… you can probably guess from everything I said above.

Let me tell you something interesting: it’s not cheating.
It’s not “haha, joke’s on you — ChatGPT helped me.”
Because when you work as a developer on a project made of hundreds of files and thousands of lines of code, there’s no way you can survive without real understanding.

You can’t fix bugs just by asking AI to “find the issue.”
You have to navigate through dozens of if-else statements, read the logic, and truly understand the project’s architecture.
So yes — I use AI as a coding assistant, but it doesn’t replace me.
AI can’t open the project, run it, test it in the browser, or see what actually broke.
That part still belongs to the human behind the keyboard.

Using AI isn’t cheating — it’s the new normal.
It’s a tool that every professional developer should know how to use.
It’s not about replacing humans; it’s about working smarter and faster.
My boss expects it, my team uses it, and that’s just how the modern workflow looks.
The key difference? They trust me to verify every AI-generated code snippet before it reaches production — and that’s what makes me a reliable developer, not a vibe coder.

But there’s another side to the story.
As a lecturer teaching programming, I can immediately tell when a student submits AI-generated code.
Maybe because I use it myself and can recognize the pattern.
But also because the student can’t explain their own code.
And that’s the real problem — not that the code came from AI, but that the student doesn’t understand it.

Some of them even say: “No, I didn’t use ChatGPT,” while I can literally see the tab open in the corner of their screen.
So my message to all junior web developers using AI is simple: using AI is fine — pretending you don’t is not.
AI is your assistant, not your identity.
It’s here to help you, but you still need to know what’s going on under the hood.

Should Beginners Use AI?

I’ve already said a lot about this earlier — but maybe it didn’t sound clear enough.
In my opinion, beginners should use AI very carefully — or even minimize it.

Why? Because AI doesn’t speed up the learning process.
There’s no shortcut in learning programming — it’s a set of processes happening in your brain.
And when you rely too much on AI, it can actually slow those processes down.
It makes everything feel easier and more comfortable, but coding isn’t supposed to be comfortable.
Training your brain to expect instant solutions is a mistake — because programming is all about patience, logic, and problem-solving.

That’s why I always tell my students:

“Try to write it yourself first. It doesn’t have to be perfect — it just has to work, and you have to understand it.
When you come to me next time, make sure you can explain your own code.”

If you learn to code with AI, use it only when you truly get stuck.
Before asking for help, look at the code, debug it yourself, think it through.
If you really have to use ChatGPT — at least verify the output.
Show the AI your specific error message, ask for suggestions, and then test them yourself.
That way, you still learn something in the process and get that satisfying “I fixed it myself” moment.

But AI should be the last resort, not your main teacher.
As a lecturer, I keep reminding my students that they’re here to learn, not to impress me with something AI generated.

They don’t have to bring me perfect, ready-made projects — that’s not the point.

I’m not here to grade AI code.

I’m here to help them understand something.

The reality is changing, though.
Even homework looks different now, and being a teacher in this world isn’t easy anymore.
But my advice for every junior web developer using AI stays the same:
use it smartly.

Do Senior Developers Use AI?

I won’t make this part too long — the answer is simple: yes.
And there’s nothing weird or shameful about it.
That’s just how the tech world works now.

AI isn’t a bonus anymore — it’s a requirement.
It’s not about showing off or taking shortcuts; it’s about keeping up with the pace of technology.

Once upon a time, people said “Why would I need a mobile phone? Landlines are enough.”
When was the last time you saw a landline, though?
Exactly.
It’s the same with AI — eventually, everyone adapts.
And while I still remember the days of old Nokias (yes, I’m that old!), things have changed fast.

So when your boss expects it, your teammates use it, and job listings say “Experience with AI assistants or code generation tools” right next to “Knowledge of REST APIs”, it’s clear where we are heading.
For most companies, senior developer AI use isn’t a trend — it’s the new normal.

Whether you call it vibe coding or not doesn’t really matter anymore.
AI has become part of our workflow — a tool we use daily, just like Git or Stack Overflow.
The difference is, now it can also think with us.

Final Thoughts

I’ve shown both the bright and dark sides of using AI in programming.
And while it’s an incredible help — even a luxury — for those who already know how to code,
I’d still be careful recommending it to beginners.

If you’re just starting your journey, use AI as a learning tool, not a building tool.
AI won’t replace real understanding.
It’s there to support you — not to code for you.

For senior developers, on the other hand, there’s nothing to be afraid of.
Let’s be reasonable — AI isn’t a weapon of mass destruction.
It’s already a standard, part of everyday workflow in web development,
and the sooner we adapt, the better.

That’s pretty much it on the topic — at least for now.
The vibe coding meaning will probably keep evolving as technology does,
but one thing stays the same: we still need humans who understand what they build.

And since I still recommend traditional learning methods for beginners —

I’ve got a little bonus for you.

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FAQ – Common Questions About Vibe Coding and AI