My Thoughts on Programmers vs Vibe Coders

Lately my Threads timeline has been filled with discussions and a bit of drama between people who call themselves vibe coders and those who identify as programmers, developers, or engineers. The debates keep repeating: some people defend traditional software engineering, while others celebrate the rise of more casual and tool-driven creation. Before deciding who is right or wrong, I think it is useful to look at a broader idea first: the democratization of tools.

The Democratization of Tools

Before the printing press existed, producing written works was extremely difficult. Books were copied by hand; they were expensive, rare, and usually created by people with deep expertise or strong access to resources. Because of that, most works that survived from that era were highly curated and usually very high quality.

When the printing press arrived, everything changed. Printing became cheaper and easier, and suddenly there were far more books than ever before. Many of them were low quality or repetitive, but at the same time the world also gained transformative works, new ideas, and knowledge that reached millions of people. The Renaissance, scientific progress, and new ways of thinking were accelerated because tools became accessible.

We can see similar patterns in other areas too. Photography was once limited to professionals with expensive cameras and deep technical knowledge. Now almost everyone has a smartphone camera, which means there are millions of average photos published every day-but also new creative voices that would never have existed otherwise.

How This Relates to Vibe Coding

To me, vibe coding feels like the same phenomenon. In the past, building an application was extremely difficult. You needed a strong IT or engineering background, deep understanding of systems, and years of learning. Today, tools are becoming simpler and more accessible. Ordinary people can build small apps, prototypes, or workflows without necessarily being traditional programmers.

The result is predictable. The number of projects increases dramatically, but the majority of them are low quality. Still, a few of them have real potential, and some may eventually grow into meaningful products.

The Acceleration of AI Tools

What makes this moment different is the rapid development of AI. A few months ago, when I tested some of these tools, I felt that they were still not good enough-not even at an acceptable level for production. But lately I tried again, and the results are surprisingly decent for an MVP. The gap between idea and execution is shrinking, and tools are improving faster than many people expect.

The Technical Perspective vs The Business Perspective

From what I see, many engineers, programmers, or developers tend to comment mainly from a technical perspective. They talk about security, performance, architecture, deployment, maintainability, and many other valid concerns. They are not wrong at all. These matters are real, important, and absolutely necessary once a product scales.

However, one thing that this group sometimes forgets is the business side. Questions like how to find customers, how to validate ideas, or how to grow revenue are often seen as secondary, even though they are just as critical as clean code.

Tools as Business Enablers

Tools such as the printing press made it easier for people to start businesses and create opportunities. In the same way, vibe coding tools enable people to experiment, test markets, and launch ideas quickly. If a product eventually gains traction and becomes successful, there will almost always be a moment when real programmers or engineers are needed, either to optimize, restructure, or completely rebuild the system from scratch because the earlier version is too messy to fix gradually.

The Bigger Picture

For me, this whole “programmer versus vibe coder” debate is simply another chapter in the long story of the democratization of tools. When tools become more accessible, the volume of output increases, the average quality drops, but new opportunities also appear. Some results will be noise, but some will change industries, inspire others, and redefine what is possible.

Instead of arguing about identity or labels, maybe it is more useful to recognize that both roles can coexist. Engineers safeguard stability and depth, while vibe coders open doors for experimentation and speed. Together, they shape the next wave of creation, just like every technological shift before this one.