Deep Dive: 'Vibe coding'

Source: Dev.to

The Vibe Check: Inside Silicon Valley’s High‑Stakes War Over the Soul of Software

Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan recently warned that established SaaS companies—including giants like Zoho—will “perish.” He attributes their downfall not to a new business model or disruptive app, but to an amorphous concept he calls vibe coding.

Zoho’s founder Sridhar Vembu pushed back, dismissing the idea as an “oversimplification” of real engineering and betting that his multi‑billion‑dollar company, built on methodical, human‑led development, will “outshine the vibe coding companies.”

This debate is not theoretical; it is the opening salvo in a conflict over the future of software development itself. Massive AI advances and strategic alliances—most notably Google’s partnership with Replit—have turned vibe coding from a niche term into an industry‑wide flashpoint.

A Micro‑Case Study: Traditional vs. Vibe Coding

Traditional Development Workflow

1. Define the task – Build a real‑time dashboard component that fetches user data, displays it in a sortable table, and refreshes every 30 seconds.
2. Write explicit code –
   • Use Axios (or similar) for the API call.
   • Manage component state (loading, error, success) with React hooks (useState, useEffect).
   • Implement a setInterval for polling and include a cleanup function to avoid memory leaks.
   • Build the UI and sorting logic.
3. Deploy – The process is deliberate, requires deep understanding of multiple concepts, and typically takes a few hours.

Vibe Coding Workflow

1. Prompt the AI – Maya types a high‑level request into an AI‑assisted platform such as Replit or Cursor:

   Create a React component that fetches user data from '/api/users' and displays it in a table with sortable columns for name, email, and signup date. The data must refresh every 30 seconds and show a loading state.

2. AI generates code – Within seconds the platform returns a complete, functional file that uses the same standard libraries and patterns Maya would have written.

3. Bug appears – A week later a performance issue surfaces: memory usage spikes due to a subtle leak.

   • Traditional response: Maya inspects the component’s lifecycle, suspects the setInterval cleanup, and fixes the bug directly.
   • Vibe coding response: Maya prompts the AI again (“Refactor the previous component to fix any potential memory leaks”). The AI may fix the bug, but Maya bypasses the diagnostic step, losing the opportunity to deepen her understanding of why the leak occurred.

This scenario illustrates the core tension: does reliance on AI turn developers into expert prompt writers and code reviewers, or does it erode the foundational skills needed to design robust systems?

Strategic Partnerships Fueling the War

• Google × Replit – The partnership aims to bring “vibe coding” to more companies by integrating Google’s AI models and cloud infrastructure with Replit’s development environment.
• Competing players – Anthropic and the AI‑native editor Cursor are also targeting the same market of AI‑augmented developers.

These alliances signal a calculated move by major tech firms to operationalize intent‑based coding and build dominant ecosystems around it.

Positions from the Frontlines

Garry Tan (Y Combinator)

“I believe that monolithic, bundled SaaS companies like Zoho or HubSpot will perish.”

Tan argues that accelerated development cycles will render slower, more integrated software suites obsolete.

Sridhar Vembu (Zoho)

“We will outshine the vibe coding companies… Our bet is that the craft of software development is not amenable to such oversimplification.”

Vembu contends that AI‑generated code lacks the architectural foresight and deep contextual understanding required for reliable, scalable, and maintainable systems.

Downstream Risks of Vibe Coding

1. The Unmaintainable App – Hundreds of AI‑generated components can create a fragmented codebase with inconsistent styles, hidden bugs, and fragile interdependencies.
2. Security as an Afterthought – AI models trained on public code may reproduce known vulnerabilities (e.g., SQL injection). Developers who do not grasp security fundamentals may inadvertently ship exploitable code.
3. The Black‑Box Dilemma – When the rationale behind algorithm or data‑structure choices is opaque, debugging becomes exponentially harder, and innovation stalls as developers hesitate to modify code they don’t fully understand.

Potential Futures

The “Vibe Coding War” will be decided not by marketing hype or social‑media duels, but by real‑world production metrics, quarterly performance reports, and the long‑term stability of the software that powers our world. The industry now stands at a crossroads, and the path chosen will shape the very soul of software for years to come.