Vibecoding - Everyone can now make software

I was reading this article on the New York Times about the phenomenon some are calling “Vibecoding” (Andrej Karpathy’s term?):

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/technology/personaltech/vibecoding-ai-software-programming.html

It was very interesting. The author describes how with no programming experience, he has been able to create various personal software projects using AI tools, including one that uses image recognition to automatically analyze and identify objects in his refrigerator. He uploads the image manually to the software, and the software helps him decide what to pack in his son’s lunchbox.

Here’s a video of his development process that was embedded in the article:

https://vp.nyt.com/video/2025/02/26/134734_1_27roose-video-2_wg_1080p.mp4

You will notice he uses Bolt. I tried Bolt and found it interesting, but for a professional programmer I prefer using Cursor. I have also heard anecdotally that Bolt has trouble with the “Deploy” step, although as can be seen here this author did not have any difficulties getting his application working (for his own personal usage, only). Deployment, in general, is a complicated and advanced step that even professional programmers often have difficulty with performing in a work setting and resulting in a reliable and efficient deployment of an application in a production cloud environment. This is something that the big technology companies, and their staff, have a significant advantage in and often separates personal software applications from professional applications that can be used by millions of users concurrently (for example, Google Search and Maps).

The other thing I found very interesting, is that when I perused the comments on the article, just how polarized the responses were. Some people were very excited about the idea of Vibecoding, and others were very skeptical. Skeptical is a mild term for some of the comments. There were many people who, proclaimed that they were “professional programmers” with “decades of experience” and how the author doesn’t know the first thing about programming.

These people are obviously very fearful. The author didn’t say any of the things that these people said, the author was simply pointing out that he was able to make hobby projects. This polarized audience made remarks about how the author doesn’t know the first thing about reliable software, how this could never work in the real world, etc.

These people are missing the very important point. These points are as follows:

1. The field of software programming is profoundly changing.
2. Everyone will soon be able to make software for their own personal needs.
3. Embrace this change or be left behind (the professional programmers).

I personally feel that this is a huge opportunity for everyone. Once everyone can make software, there will be many more opportunities for everyone - professional programmers and hobbyists alike.

Here are some other resources (videos) that I have reviewed on this subject and found informative. They are more “how-to” focused and advanced, for anyone that wants to see in a little more detail how this is actually done:

“How To Build Web Apps using v0 + Bolt.new + Cursor”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0ohq8RX_T4

“Clone Any App Design Effortlessly with Cursor AI”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrW1zSZtn1E