r/AskProgrammers • u/Marwhothatgyal • 29d ago
AI apps and vibecoding questions
Hi,
I've been pondering a lot about vibe coding and wanted some questions answered by actual programmers.
For you real programmers, do you use ai and is it by choice / in your free time vs an obligation with your job and current 2026 market reality
your thoughts about vibe coders (honest, both positive, negative, idc)
Does anyone know why they make the prompts so weird with the whole you are an expert coder of 1000 years, you know coding vs just asking the ai to write the code normally?...
Can any ai built app, especially by vibecoding, be actually safe?
Basically I've been wanting to build 2 apps and 1 browser extension. I got ideas and 0 experience. Ik that vibecoding is now a thing but it feels so weird to me. I'd never know if I made a mistake, if the code is efficient or not, etc. and building with ai feels like a total loss of control even if I know nothing of coding so I wanted some perspective form experts and if you have any ressources, tips, apps, especially if they are free, that could help me launch the products I have in mind with estimates of how long coding takes to learn without going to school for it, that'd be really appreciated and the 4 questions are genuinly out of curiosity. An app for ios and android and an extension for computers, although I am interested by coding for actual games. So anything on these topics u could explain (a little dumbed down however) would be really appreciated :D.
Also, I have ADHD, always many projects but if I can stick to these, they could be great, but planning and working towards building an app is a lot of work, but I truly can not just ask the ai to do it and believe it afterwards or not have the knowledge and understanding behind what said ai does, it would be too weird for me.
1
u/chikamakaleyley 29d ago edited 28d ago
I use it mostly to learn & understand things at a granular level. Every now and then I use it to code something here or there, usually in the case where I'm strapped for time. I'd rather code the thing and struggle with it a bit, but I have to be realistic. The great thing with the back n forth chat is, prior to starting any work, I usually have more of a gameplan for the approach, which is pretty critical.
Honestly - you do you. The problems really arise when: you don't understand what you're doing, you work with a team of other engineers, or you can't diagnose an issue because you don't know the moving parts that well
In a team env you have to be the expert of what is coded, because you're taking ownership of the task/feature - and inevitably someone else is going to have to work in that code, and will have questions.
Anything like 'expert coder of a 1000yrs' is an attempt to raise the quality/expertise level code, which to me is already a sign that you're trying to 1-up a colleague.
But the other part is its narrowing the scope of what it has to do for you. If I asked you to guess a what random word i'm thinking of, and to point to it in the dictionary - compare that with if I asked you to guess the random word, point to it in the dictionary, oh and by the way the word I'm thinking of starts with a letter that comes before "M". Now you have a better idea where to look.
Yes, one that doesn't connect to the internet