Practice · 2024–now · AI Present
Vibe coding
Accept AI output on feel, skip the diff, hope tests exist. Fast demos; CVEs and nobody owns the middleware.
Why Vibe coding became a costly fad
Vibe coding failed production because accountability does not transfer with generated code. It works for throwaway prototypes and hurts when security and edge cases matter. The tool stuck; the practice of skipping review ages like "move fast and break things" with extra CVEs and post-incident Slack archaeology.
Cost of the fad
What Vibe coding cost
Ship-to-prod without reading the diff became a flex until incidents revealed nobody knew which prompt wrote the auth middleware. Review debt arrived in one weekend demo.
Case studies
- AI codebase rewrite pilots that shipped nothing — Six-figure LLM API and SI costs; production cutover: zero
- Low-code to replace engineering — then hire engineers — Seven-figure platform licenses; shadow IT integration debt
- Vibe-coded auth middleware nobody could explain — Sev-1 incident; emergency rewrite; weeks of audit and customer trust repair
Patterns
Compare with
Related
Practice · 2021–now
AI pair programming
Coding agents that edit the repo — now table stakes. Generation outran review capacity; ownership is the bottleneck.
Practice · 2023–now
AI will rewrite the codebase
Big-bang rewrite, now with a chatbot — then with agents. Same failure mode; prettier slides.
$ Exec decks promised autonomous migrations "by next quarter," then rebranded as "agentic modernization." Teams that skipped tests, ownership, and incremental strangler patterns bought expensive demos and fragile diffs.
Framework · 2023–now
LLM app frameworks
LangChain-class glue mutated into MCP clients and thin wrappers around vendor APIs. The durable pieces are still boring: evals, retrieval, and product UX.
Practice · 2024–now
AI review bottleneck
Copilot ships PRs faster than teams can review. Generation outran ownership and security review — the real 2026 invoice.