Like it or not, vibe coders are the next software engineers.

3 years ago I made a prediction that triggered a mixed response:

Within our lifetime. We will see a YouTuber or streamer becoming head of a state.

Me (March 4, 2022)

Whilst I don't believe this prediction has come true there's been progress. In June 2024 a Cypriot YouTuber was voted to become a member of the European Parliament, he earned 19.4% of the vote and earned 40% of votes from the 18-24 age group.¹

The interesting thing about my prediction is that it seems that it's actually gone the other way. More politicians are becoming YouTubers and Streamers.

Could the same thing happen with vibe coders? Perhaps software engineers are the next vibe coders.

We like to bash

We see software engineers being dismissive at the content aimed at vibe coders. There's a new wave of people being introduced to coding and managing complexity; so most of the content is covering the basics. I.e. Write tests, compartmentalise and plan things out before you dive into the code.

This wave of programmers haven't had the time to digest The Mythical Man-Month to learn; upfront planning in software leads to a huge reduction in downstream costs. They are however learning the hard way, by hitting these challenges head on. (For better or worse).

How did you get here?

It's all a journey and we're at different stages of the process. A large overhead to programming is building up the vocabulary, this is the struggle for both early stage developers and vibe coders.²

Experienced programmers have been exposed to more language and can therefore provide more specificity when commanding the computer, vibe coders will get there. Perhaps this specificity makes the experienced programmer a better vibe coder. Maybe it's their keyboard.

No one was born with the knowledge of how the computer works, there's hurdles to overcome. It was only a decade ago we were cringing at someone stating they're full-time YouTubers or an Instagram influencer, and look, they've still got you glued to your screen.