For centuries, writers have relied on a highly sophisticated system known as:
“Write something terrible… and fix it later.”
This system has powered everything from Shakespeare to your last slightly panicked email that began with “Just circling back.”
It is not elegant.
It is not efficient.
It is not, in any meaningful sense, a plan.
But it works.
And now, thanks to what people are calling “vibe coding,” the world of software has finally rediscovered it and is treating it like a breakthrough.
The Ancient Art of Making It Up As You Go Along
If you ask most people how writing works, they’ll describe something very sensible:
You think of an idea
You structure it clearly
You write it down
This is completely wrong.
What actually happens is:
You open a blank page
You stare at it like it has personally offended you
You type something questionable
You keep typing
At some point, a thought appears
You chase it
You delete half of it
You rewrite it
Eventually, something emerges that looks like you knew what you were doing all along
This is known in professional circles as “the process.”
Writers sometimes call it drafting.
In reality, it is closer to wandering around in the dark, occasionally bumping into something that feels important.
Thinking Is Not What You Think It Is
We like to believe that we think first, and then express those thoughts.
But that’s often not how it works at all.
In fields like Cognitive Science, there’s a growing recognition that:
Writing isn’t the output of thinking.
Writing is the process of thinking.
If you really want to break your brain, try this.
Say an idea out loud that you haven’t fully figured out yet. Not a polished one. A slightly wobbly one. And as you’re speaking, pay very close attention to the moment the idea actually appears.
Because something odd happens.
A sentence comes out of your mouth… and inside that sentence, a clearer idea suddenly forms.
And you’re left with a slightly unsettling question:
Did that idea exist before you said the words?
Or did it arrive through the words?
It doesn’t feel like you retrieved it.
It feels like you caught it.
Which is why the messy first draft isn’t a failure.
It is the thought.
The editing is just you slowly realising what you meant.
Enter Vibe Coding
For a long time, building software was treated like building a bridge.
You had the Waterfall Model:
Define everything upfront
Plan every step
Build it carefully
Try not to collapse halfway through
This works well, provided you are building an actual bridge.
It works less well when building software, where the main requirement tends to be “we’ll know what we want once we see it.”
So along came Agile Software Development:
Build a bit
Test it
Adjust
Repeat
This was a huge improvement.
But it still assumed something slightly unrealistic:
That you knew what you were trying to build.
And Then… We Started Typing
Vibe coding quietly removes that assumption.
Instead of:
Carefully designing systems
Translating thoughts into rigid syntax
Hoping it works
You now:
Describe what you want
See something appear
React to it
Refine it
Nudge it
Break it
Fix it
Break it again
Fix it again
Which, if this is starting to sound familiar, is exactly how writing works.
It’s dump and edit.
Just with more buttons and slightly more swearing.
Why It Feels So Natural
People say vibe coding feels intuitive.
That’s because it is.
It lines up with how humans actually think:
Not in perfect structures
Not in fully formed plans
But in fragments, guesses, and revisions
Traditional software development often asked people to think in a way that humans don’t naturally think.
Vibe coding lets them think in language.
And language is the native interface of the brain.
The Slight Problem
There is, however, a small issue.
When you make it very easy to create things by dumping ideas and refining them…
You can create a lot of things.
Some of these things will be good.
Some of these things will be… enthusiastic.
This is not a new problem.
Writers have been producing large volumes of questionable material for centuries.
We just didn’t call it shipping.
From Waterfall to… Whatever This Is
If you squint a bit, you can see a pattern:
Waterfall: plan everything
Agile: figure it out as you go
Vibe coding: think out loud and see what happens
Each step moves closer to how humans actually operate.
Less pretending.
More doing.
Less certainty.
More iteration.
The Real Shift
The interesting part isn’t that coding got easier.
It’s that coding got closer to thinking.
We didn’t invent a new way to build things.
We rediscovered an old one.
Writers have known this forever:
You don’t start with clarity.
You start with a mess.
And if you keep going, the mess slowly turns into something that feels inevitable.
One Final Thought
People building software are not becoming less disciplined.
They’re just working more like writers have always worked.
Which means:
The first version will be bad
The second version will be confusing
The third version might accidentally be good
And eventually, you’ll look at the finished thing and think:
“Yes. That’s exactly what I meant.”
Even though at the beginning, you had absolutely no idea what you meant.
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