Vibe Coding, AI and Why Beginners Should Stay Away

Vibe coding is about writing code that’s “good enough” to test the vibe with a real user, not “perfect enough” to make you feel smart or to assume it’s going to be functioning on production.

This is where most people get it wrong.

AI as an Amplifier

AI doesn’t make you a 10x dev. It makes you 10x more of whatever you already are.

If you’re good - AI makes you faster, sharper, more productive.

If you suck - AI makes you ship garbage faster than ever before.

If you don’t understand fundamentals or software lifecycle, AI will enhance your confusion and generate spaghetti code until the end of time.

On the flip side - if you do know how to code, AI becomes your unfair advantage. It cuts repetition, accelerates prototyping and frees you to focus on the big-picture stuff.

You’ve probably seen the complaints:

“What’s the point of vibe coding if I still have to pay a dev to fix it?”

That’s exactly the problem.

People think AI = replacement.

Wrong. Maybe some day, but not now.

Now? AI = accelerator.

If you don’t know how to guide it, if you are clueless of fundamentals or software lifecycle - you’ll get a half-baked result. Then you’ll need a real dev to come in and fix the mess.

Why Beginners Should Be Careful

This is the part some people don’t want to hear: AI-driven development is not for beginners.

At least not in 2025.

If you don’t know how things work under the hood, you won’t recognize when the AI is wrong. You’ll just copy-paste, stack error on error and end up with an unmaintainable mess.

Maybe in a couple of years AI will scaffold entire apps with minimal input. But even then, someone with real-world experience will have to guide it. Because at the end of the day: you’re the architect, AI is just the contractor.

My Workflow With Cursor

Here’s how I personally use Cursor (AI IDE):

• Autocomplete: 60-70% of the time I just use it to autocomplete. It saves me keystrokes, fills in boilerplate, and lets me focus on structure.

• Agent Mode: If the task is bigger (like scaffolding something that’d take me awhile), but I know what the end result should look like, I’ll let the agent do it. Then I just review, adjust and cleanup.

• Ask Mode: When I hit something I don’t understand - a bug, an unknown library, a new framework - I use AI as a teacher. I’ll ask a bunch of questions, run my own research alongside and only when I fully understand, I’ll either code it myself or let AI handle the boring parts.

Notice the pattern. I never outsource thinking to AI. I use it to enhance my own process. That’s the key difference.

Wrapping Up

Vibe coding isn’t about being reckless. It’s about moving fast enough to validate ideas before investing in a quality code.

AI isn’t here to save bad developers. It’s here to multiply good ones.

For beginners, the best move right now is still to learn the fundamentals, ship projects and understand how code works.

Because until AI becomes better at doing the thinking for you, it’s still your experience, your creativity, and your brain steering the ship.

AI just helps you move faster.