Concept · Building with AI

Vibe coding vs software engineering

Also called: writing code vs prompting, prompting vs coding, prompting code, AI-assisted programming, AI-assisted coding, AI-assisted engineering, vibe coding vs engineering

Two ways to build software with AI. In vibe coding, a term Andrej Karpathy coined in 2025, a person accepts the code the AI writes without reading it. In software engineering with AI help, a person reviews, tests and can explain the code. The programmer Simon Willison draws the line at that review.

For example: A founder prompts an app builder until a demo works and never opens the code. That is vibe coding. An engineer uses a coding agent, reads each change and runs the tests before release. That is software engineering.

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