Lileks, likely to outsell me on the app stores, vibe codes:
I vibe-coded an app the other day that reads scans of my receipts and categorizes them according to, well, categories. Aren’t I just tech-savvy guy who knows his way around the modern word! Eh. It was a matter of simple requests and fine-tuning. None of the granular coding I have to do with this site sometimes. I did it because I want to know exactly what goes where, so I can set aside the surplus to blow on a mad lavish indulgence:
Plates for Eight.
Although I do not like to use the term “vibe code” because I am (or was) a technology professional with skill, experience, perspective, and discernment involved in building software that non-technical people lack.
I dunno, though. To make myself worthwhile to modern employers, I should also practice overcomplicating my build process with a bunch of scripts, agents, and CI/CD pipelines. But I’ve always favored simplicity, which is out of fashion. Don’t automate something that you’re only going to do a handful of times and which will likely change by the next time you need to do it. Because you’ve got to test the scripts, agents, and build pipelines, and that’s more artifacts for a quality professional to lose sleep over.
