Vibe Coding: Where Everyone Can ‘Speak’ Computer Programming
In 2023, Andrej Karpathy said English was the hottest new programming language, and from that, once again he provided his vision of the AI world and the use of natural language in programming when earlier this month when he coined the term “vibe coding.”
There’s a new kind of coding I call “vibe coding”, where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists. It’s possible because the LLMs (e.g. Cursor Composer w Sonnet) are getting too good. Also I just talk to Composer with SuperWhisper…
— Andrej Karpathy (@karpathy) February 2, 2025
“There’s a new kind of coding I call ‘vibe coding’, where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists,” he wrote in a post on X. “It’s possible because the LLMs (e.g. Cursor Composer w Sonnet) are getting too good. Also, I just talk to Composer with SuperWhisper so I barely even touch the keyboard.”
Karpathy is a co-founder of OpenAI who has now started a new AI+Education company called Eureka Labs.
Brad Shimmin, an analyst at Omdia, identified Cline as a popular tool for using natural language to help with coding and it has become useful for vibe coding.
Indeed, some of the major players in the GenAI space enabling English for programming include Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, IBM and AWS among others, Shimmin noted. They are developing models with improved tool use and structured outputs. And some of the key development platforms mentioned include GitHub Copilot with VS Code, Replit (which was an early adopter of AI integration), Aider, Cline, Cursor and Zed.
Meanwhile, Nick Baumann, who is head of product marketing at Cline, told The New Stack that vibe coding is a high-level approach to coding using AI where users describe requirements from an end-user perspective rather than technical specifications.
“It uses natural language to communicate desired outcomes, such as ‘make the hero section more presentable,’” he said. “It allows AI to handle the technical implementation details.”
In a recent blog post, Baumann wrote: “Two days ago, Andrej Karpathy set Tech Twitter ablaze with a provocative idea he calls ‘vibe coding’ – where you ‘fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists.’ Using AI tools (like Cline), he demonstrated building an entire LLM reader application in about an hour, barely touching the keyboard.”
Fundamental Shift
In his highly informative post, Baumann explained everything and described vibe coding as just another chapter in the evolution of programming.
But “what makes ‘vibe coding’ fascinating: it’s not just another layer — it might be a fundamental shift in how we express intent to computers,” he wrote in his post. “Instead of telling machines exactly what to do through precise instructions, we’re moving toward describing what we want in natural language.”
Moreover, “At Cline, we recognize this historical pattern. Just as C didn’t eliminate assembly language but made it unnecessary for most tasks, AI won’t eliminate traditional coding but will change where we spend our cognitive effort,” he wrote.
Nevertheless, Baumann notes that whether “vibe coding” becomes as fundamental as previous abstractions remains to be seen. “But one thing is clear: those who dismiss it entirely are echoing the assembly programmers of 1957, the systems programmers of 1973, and every other group that resisted a new abstraction layer that ultimately became standard,” he wrote.
What Is Cline?
Initially known as Claude Dev (because of its focus on Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 3.5 LLM), Cline was renamed to reflect that it is an AI assistant that can use your CLI (command line interface) aNd Editor — CLINE.
Cline is a VS Code extension for AI-assisted coding. It allows chat conversations within VS Code, and can read, write, and edit files in the codebase. It also actively seeks context by examining the codebase and asking questions.
Cline is a free extension but uses a “bring your own API key” model. It works with various AI models including Claude 3.5 Sonnet and some DeepSeek models as a cheaper alternative.
It is popular for “vibe coding” where developers describe desired outcomes in natural language. The tool is designed to act like “having somebody right next to you who’s like a brilliant engineer” and can work with various levels of specification, from vague requirements to specific technical details.
Types of Vibe Coders
Meanwhile, in an interview with The New Stack, Baumann said there are two main categories of vibe coders: Newcomers to coding who wouldn’t code without AI assistance and experienced engineers using AI to multiply their productivity.
“People who are vibe coding are people who are using AI to code, or new to coding. These people who, without AI, would not code at all… And then there are people on the other side who are super experienced engineers, who don’t need AI, but have found that they can further leverage their coding skills 10x or 100x,” he said.
A New Era of Coding
The developer function of writing code will start to slowly disappear in the next five years and likely will all be gone altogether 15 years from now, a 2023 Constellation Research report written by analyst Holger Mueller, reads.
“More importantly, this situation will free developers from the need to master code, because the primary input will be voice rather than keyboard. Voice is faster and more efficient than any typing as an input, but the key innovation is that software is writing software,” the report said.
This would broadly expand the number of people who can build applications, he said.
“Effectively, the move from keyboard to voice and from code to natural language (NL) means that more software will be able to be built and more business users will be able to put themselves in charge of their automation destiny,” the report reads.
In an interview, Mueller told The New Stack that he created apps using Microsoft’s Power Platform and ChatGPT by talking and typing. Essentially, he was vibe coding.
