If you think coding is dead, you haven't met my clients.

No, vibe-coding is not your saviour.

I had yet another discussion with another client. We were talking about various topics. And, unfortunately, the topic landed on coding and his perspective of how people like myself (software developers) are no longer really necessary.

The points he made:

1. Coding is dead.
2. Software developers will soon go the way of the dodo.
3. “Very soon, i can just say it, in English, and get myself my software. I don’t even need to know coding or programming or any programming languages at all”
4. Finally, software development is being democratized!

I could have almost sensed his ecstasy from his tone and voice. It was as if he was being held hostage to me, and can’t wait for the day that he will break all the shackles of slavery and finally break free from me.

Sigh!

Another pipe dreamer, I thought.

I’m well aware that there are many who are quite violently against my stand that vibe-coding is NOT going to rule the world anytime soon. They have made their stand VERY clear. They even have demos and projects to show me.

“Hey, I did this CRM. Took me, like, 2 hours. Errr, did you say you took 6 months?”, they would comment sarcastically.

I often listen to such comments and stay silent. Because I’m in the ACTUAL daily grind of developing custom softwares for ACTUAL businesses who have ACTUAL real-life operational workflow that ACTUALLY needs to be satisfied.

Not a science-project. And not something that works today or this week, and it’s considered good enough. “Tomorrow is another day” or “Next week is next week’s problem” are not a healthy attitudes I would advocate.

And no, my clients won’t be happy with knowing I can do a CRM project with 1000 features. They want to know if that SINGLE all-important feature THEY want can be integrated into their CRM or not. When I say they want to know, I mean they want it so. Period.

And no, you cannot open up your vibe editor, and type in that feature and say “Hi again, can you add-on this feature as well? Pls?”.

Because even as I say it as “1 single feature”, even as my client see it as “1 single feature”, it is ONE single feature that has MULTIPLE angles of consideration that has to be taken into account.

In other words, it’s like the doctor who makes only ONE incision cut, to save a life. No, not anyone can vibe-cut that surgical cut. Only after a multi-angled consideration did that doctor make that single cut.

Likewise, software development is a skill of architect. We don’t take a hammer and knock on anywhere we see nails. Behind a single knock comes many considerations. Because a single wrong implementation can lead to many sleepless nights, due to the repair work to be done, by the damage it caused.

Let me give you an example.

The scenario is that the System has Merchants and Vendors. A Merchant can add his Products and price them. Now, at a later stage, Client wants it such that Merchant can have a different price for that same Product for different Vendors!

And wait, he also wants a feature that can mass-update it by $x and/or x%, as and when they require.

Yes, we were conversing in normal English to each other. Even then, he was not clear, to himself and to me. Reason is because, he is a businessman. He doesn’t know about systems. He will talk in the usual manner which he knows best. And each time, I have to decipher his needs, rephrase it, then ask him back if that is what he mean.

And then he might go, “yah, yah, correct”. And I’ll sigh a relief.

Note that he might change his mind 10 minutes later, but I’m keeping this article as positive as possible.

And then, I’ll have to think of how this can be implemented, with respect to, and without breaking, all the other features already implemented and running well already.

And that is like playing Jenga. We can’t just go grab a brick. Have to consider, and re-consider, many angles.

Anyway, that is my let-out for today. My opinion is: as long as we have no dearth of clients like this, I won’t be vibe-coded out of my software development field anytime soon.

Of course, I don’t wanna sound arrogant, considering the fact that AI is growing like crazy-exponentially. 

Update: seems like ChatGPT 5 is out, guys. I’m a bit lost as to feel happy or scared.

Every one in any job is afraid when THEIR job will be replaced by these non-human newcomers. No, being afraid of migrants taking over their jobs seems last-century now.

In that respect, I too have that fear. But I’ll advise the same as I do to others. Every tech breakthrough is an opportuniy for us to improve ourselves. If vibe-coding, in future, eventually brings so much benefits for my clients, I will have to pivot myself accordingly.

But for now, I’m just living it, day by day, my daily grind, developing management softare for businesses. And being happy at it too. 😊