Vibe coding named Word of the Year. Developers everywhere faceplant
- Reference: 1762443292
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/11/06/vibe_coding_escape_the_clutches/
- Source link:
Technically two words — yes we know — it’s the compound verb Collins says describes as the “use of artificial intelligence prompted by natural language to assist with the writing of computer code”.
"Tired of wrestling with syntax? Just go with the vibes. That’s the essence of vibe coding," Collins writes in a [1]blog post published today.
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We at Vulture Central do not stand reassured.
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Collins attributes the moniker to Andrej Karpathy, a director of AI at Tesla and former OpenAI researcher. He said vibe coding is "fully giv[ing] in to the vibes, embrac[ing] exponentials, and forget[ting] that the code even exists." That might be ok for someone who knows how to code, but is, perhaps, a little risky for the enthusiastic amateur.
“While tech experts debate whether it’s revolutionary or reckless, the term has resonated far beyond Silicon Valley, speaking to a broader cultural shift towards AI-assisted everything in everyday life,” Collins adds.
[5]Trust the AI, says new coding manifesto by Kim and Yegge
[6]Forget vibe coding - Microsoft wants to make vibe working the new hotness
[7]Replit makes vibe-y promise to stop its AI agents making vibe coding disasters
[8]Older developers are down with the vibe coding vibe
Although vibe coding might sound appealing and lower barriers to an erstwhile exclusive domain, it has frightening implications for the rest of tech. Vibe coders might describe an app they want to build, oblivious that it requires database infrastructure they've never heard of — creating demand for new types of [9]automation to fill the gaps.
The Reg has seen vibe coding platforms pop up everywhere. Some among them promise that "anyone can go from idea to deployed app with UI, content, backend and logic included." [10]JetBrains and [11]AWS have now launched vibe coding tools. Application vendors are getting in on the act too: Salesforce recently launched [12]Agentforce Vibes, a new AI-assisted IDE for building apps on its platform.
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But it is early days. After getting hands-on with some vibe coding tools, The Reg suggests caution: over-promising appears to be the norm. With some heralding the arrival of a new era in tech, we might want to have a word. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://blog.collinsdictionary.com/language-lovers/collins-word-of-the-year-2025-ai-meets-authenticity-as-society-shifts/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aQzUJlPaq_zTlTfekcy7UQAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aQzUJlPaq_zTlTfekcy7UQAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aQzUJlPaq_zTlTfekcy7UQAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/21/book_review_vibe_coding/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/29/microsoft_vibe_working_office/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/22/replit_saastr_response/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/28/older_developers_ai_code/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/22/cmu_proto_x_postgres/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/05/jetbrains_kineto/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/14/aws_kiro_agentic_ide/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/02/salesforce_vibe_coding/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aQzUJlPaq_zTlTfekcy7UQAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Agreed! The way of life is to hold the palm of your hand firmly against your face and shout at the computer.
It's always been the vibe
The Castle nailed it years ago
https://youtu.be/nMuh33BMZYY?si=c7HqC_ZYe3fj1fHy
The Fast Show
Anyone remember Prof. Denzil Dexter?
He had some vibes.
Having tried vibe coding
Here are my thoughts after 12 months or so of trying this.
For context I have approx 20 years programming experience.
If you give the tools a small amount of code it can be useful. By small I mean no more than 20 lines or so at a time. It can be *somewhat* useful in terms of helping you refactor or structure the code. You have to avoid the tendency to use the output blindly. You always need to review what it gives you. So this saves you not very much time but can give you a different perspective. I just use this like asking a co-worker to review some code prior to an actual code review. That is useful to an extent but not much.
Context. It's all about context. If you give any form of AI the description of what you're trying to do it naturally doesn't know all of the things you haven't told it. The tools rarely ask for clarification. Instead they make assumptions. You then start getting output that overlooks certain things, at which point you need to prompt the tools so they understand this. Remember that you know more about the problem you're trying to solve than anything/anyone else. If you don't, stop coding, and clarify things first (This applies even if you're non-vibe coding).
The bottom line for me is this. It's nowhere near as enjoyable as the days of yore when people used Stack Overflow to discuss or read about a specific problem and then...figure it out themselves. Writing out a question or even sometimes an answer really forces you to think around what's happening. That's a good thing.
I don't agree that it's a huge time saver because by the time you've either reviewed the output or given it the context it needs, any time savings are a bit moot.
Naturally the longer you've been coding the better you'll appreciate this. If you're a 21 year old graduate and trying to score your first job you might see it as a game changer. I'd encourage you to look at what people did beforehand.
Re: Having tried vibe coding
It's great for boiler plate, writing a PIMPL outline in C++ doing an abstract base class in Python etc
Great for APIs with weird quirks. Saves having to look up that 4th parameter in OpenCV's contour function, or remember that it destroys the input image so you need to make a copy,
Handy for the maths that you vaguely know but have forgotten the details of. What's the trick for pre-inverting a matrix in advance so you can solve on large matrices that would use too much memory?
Great for suggesting alternative approaches. Instead of just asking how do I call function_X in API_Y, ask how would I solve the task and discover that there is an alternative method
Vibes
I "vibe" coded a version of the classic Breakout in one of my many local test LLMs rendered in CANVAS. It glitches out like crazy, seemed to time units wrong. It ran at speeds beyond human responses and utterly borked my VM in an infinite loop of madness.
Now, where is my hundred million sign-up bonus from one of these AI companies?
To the BeeGees Jive Talking...
It's just your Vibe Coding, docs no one can read,
Vibe coding, chaos at high speed.
Vibe coding, crashing - what a treat,
Vibe coding, hey! isn’t this neat?
Vibe coding, coffee’s my best friend,
Vibe coding, bugs that never end.
Vibe coding, dream jobs? Just a joke,
Vibe coding, laugh while you go broke
Vibe coding, bugs love to attack,
Vibe coding, my deadline's off track.
Vibe coding, wasted all my time,
Vibe coding, HEY, THIS IS SUBLIME!...
outcomes
Unless the end result is people figuring out what bollocks "vibe coding" is (and that seems unlikely), I don't see how any good can come of this.
Garbage
Worse than "The Last One" a program sold in 1981, though no doubt more flexible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_One_(software)
Now obsolete, it took input from a user and generated an executable program in the BASIC computer language.
The name derived from the idea that The Last One was the last program that would ever need writing, as it could be used to generate all subsequent software.
Even learning a programming language isn't enough, you need to learn how to program. How to question people that are using an existing system (which might be paper or in the head). How to understand datasheets. Plan. Design.
The user has no way to know if the result of Vibe is illegal plagiarism, or garbage or a mix. Even if the user is an expert the output might take longer to check than writing it from scratch.
I scoffed then, I scoff now
I remember the ads for that in Byte or somesuch, when I was taking the high school programming course, using PET Basic.
THIS tech expert is calling "Reckless".
"While tech experts debate whether it’s revolutionary or reckless ..." Collins adds.
Vibe coding is two words.
AND A WAY OF LIFE