Originally posted on Linkedin.

I don’t use AI to code. I just don’t enjoy it.

Software engineering has a cadence. Get the business requirements. Translate it to a technical solution. Figure out how to structure the code. Type out the syntax. Test if it works. Iterate until all cases are covered.

If you delegate some of these steps to an LLM, you are an AI-assisted coder. If you delegate all of them to an LLM, you are a vibe coder. I have tried both approaches briefly and abandoned them just as quickly.

I started programming 10 years ago and I fell in love with the whole process. Every step. Every painful bug. Every difficult customer. Every rushed deadline and late night. When I tried to bring AI into this process, it wasn’t the same anymore. The cadence changed. The “little wins” disappeared. Some “easy” aspects of coding became more buggy. Thinking got replaced with prompting. Software engineering became LLM babysitting.

Maybe one day AI-assisted coders or vibe coders will make me obsolete, and this job that I love will become a thing of the past. But today is not that day. So I’m off to grab a coffee and put in another late night debugging cryptic bugs for a difficult customer. The old fashioned way. Just my mind to think and fingers to type syntax and the advice of fellow coders on stack overflow.

If you enjoy “AI-assisted coding” or “vibe coding”, carry on! I’m enjoying “human coding”.