Document

My Thought About Vibe Coder

7/16/2025
3 min
Coding Culture
Hot Takes
Engineering
Tio Satria

Tio Satria

My Thought About Vibe Coder

Let's talk about this "vibe coder" thing.

I get it — sometimes you just feel the code, like jazz improvisation. No rigid plan, no exhaustive docs, just hands on the keyboard and flow mode activated. I respect that. It works especially well for quick scripts, internal tools, or when exploring solutions.

But here's my perspective — when you're architecting a system from scratch, the vibe-only approach can backfire hard. Systems need scaffolding. Design patterns, architecture, clean code principles — those aren't blockers to creativity, they’re multipliers for long-term success.

When to vibe code:

  • Prototyping
  • One-off automation
  • Personal experiments

When to slow down and architect:

  • Core system foundations
  • Anything meant to scale
  • Code that other people will inherit

Vibes + Architecture = Sustainable Velocity.

I'm all for coding with intuition — but intuition guided by principles beats raw vibes any day.