Beware of Zombie Vibe Coding
Maximize your coding efficiency with AI tools while avoiding the zombie vibe coding trap. Learn when to use AI vs keyboard shortcuts for optimal productivity.
![[vibe-coding.excalidraw.png]] Let me start with stating that I am an AI enthusiast and a mouse-less driven development adopter before. I have memorized shortcuts of many IDEs and worked with many flavors of VIM. Therefore, I have a keyboard oriented view around the topic of vibe coding. At the end of the day, when we prompt the AI, we are making keystrokes (because using the microphone option is weird).
My view on the topic is:
The idea is what matters. The time it takes to hit the keystrokes is delay. Optimize it!
We should always aim to achieve the idea that popped in our head with least keystrokes possible. This emphasizes that AI can be super efficient in many cases, but not alway.
AI can do wonders in scaffolding a project from scratch or developing a feature from scratch, as the amount of code it writes is always going to be greater that the length of the prompt (optimized keystrokes). However, addiction to vibe coding can lead one to become a zombie and starting asking AI to do code formatting or even deleting a line. It is much more efficient to invoke the IDE shortcut for formatting code rather than prompting AI to do so. It is far more efficient to invoke VIM’s delete line keys compared to asking the AI to delete a line. What I am saying is that there are cases where prompting the AI is not the most efficient way. Don’t become a vibe coding zombie.
On the other extreme, it is easy for an engineer to become a manual edits zombie. Think about the time spent trying to remove the last comma from a CSV. When an engineer enters zombie mode, they would keep deleting commas line by line while daydreaming—Do zombies daydream hmmm. Snapping out of zombie mode, the same engineer could invoke a search replace, or a VIM macro, or (nowadays) ask AI to fix it. The point is how to get there with least amount of keystrokes. Don’t become a manual edits zombie.
Finally, just like how we shouldn’t need a calculator for find 10 + 2, we shouldn’t become zombie vibe coders. Focus on the idea, find tools that get you there in least number of keystrokes.