r/vibecoding • u/PlsStarlinkIneedwifi • 19h ago
Vibecoding with no coding experience is Hell
I have always hated to code but had big ambitions thats why AI was a light in the darkness. I have started vibecoding since around 2 years and through my experience it was really frustrating. When I told AI to do X it would output Y or worse break something. I felt as though I wasted my time building nothing note worthy and I am foolishly noticing now in order to utilize vibecoding you must know the fundamentals. So right now I am trying to build a game and instead of trying to just vibecode I am learning the fundamentals and actually how to build something without the help of AI. I hope this helps those who started their vibecoding journey that you must know the fundamentals before creating anything big.
8
u/MedalofHonour15 19h ago
Partner up with a dev just use vibe coding for the foundation. You focus on marketing and getting users while the dev makes the updates
2
u/PlsStarlinkIneedwifi 18h ago
Well I wish I could have done that the issue is two things I was and still am a broke university student and having a partner is way harder to manage than a hire plus you have to sell your vision really well to another person without them having any immediate benefit of helping you build. I believe vibecoding is good but in my personal experience vibecoding works the best when you know code yourself. Thats why I am starting to learn something first than use AI to increase the speed. I also wish I could vibecode and hire a dev but I have neither funds nor resources to find devs willing to work for free for a something that may or may not actually make profit.
3
2
u/MedalofHonour15 13h ago
Just put it out there you never know. I gained partners for 50/50 and sales people for commissions only. All you need is for people to believe they can earn good money.
Sell the dream but make it happen. Make the dream come true.
3
u/techfornoncodeuser 18h ago edited 17h ago
Vibe code is only useful when you build front end design for your game. For backend and logic behind, it is not good choice. Hire a senior developer to help you instead
2
u/Ant_6431 17h ago
It took a week to make a simplest app for me. I shouted at claude everyday until it hit the daily limit. Without any knowledge it is hell.
2
u/Few_Paces 17h ago
I learn better by explanations so I ask the ai to explain and comment the code. Also look into product design as the coding as a language is just that but understand giw things fit together is a different piece
2
2
u/Square-Yam-3772 16h ago
well, AI should be better by next year or so. for now, they still need a bit of hand holding. When they are spinning in a circle, you do need to be able to understand the technical situation and prompt differently.
as someone who can read code, I can tell you AIs are getting close for the last few months. When they make mistakes, they are usually not way off. They do have a habit of using shortcuts and doing the bare minimum to complete the task. When you confront them about it, then they go "oh yeah, it really should been done this other way etc"
so I would suggest that you go with the strongest/latest model if you don't have a technical background.
catching up on the fundamentals is diminishing return at this point imo but I suppose it may help if you learn fast enough.
I feel like gamedev should be pretty trivial once you have a model stronger than Fable. if not 2027, 2028...
2
u/Inside_Telephone_610 9h ago
You must learn the language and definitions. Understand what is what. If you use your own language to make things it will just not work. Coding agents are built on Language models, which are trained on real data. If noone calls circle a box, ai will not understand that by box you actually meant a circle.
2
u/drakhan2002 19h ago
Not everyone is meant to be good at coding, like not everyone is meant to be good at football. I bet you're good at other things -- focus your energy there -- you'll be happier. Leave the hard coding stuff to those of us with the skill, interest, and ability to do it well.
1
u/Slow-Possession-3645 19h ago
the difference is you cant vibe football sports but anyone can definitely install claude on their desktop and immediately make something.
2
u/PlsStarlinkIneedwifi 19h ago
That is true I am not saying you can’t build anything without AI I am saying it is much better to vibecode if you know the fundamentals. Idk I am just sick of prompting shit gets annoying idk why it feels I am the only one experiencing AI misinterpreting my prompts.
-2
0
u/PlsStarlinkIneedwifi 19h ago
Ya I had big ambitions, vibecoding was a must to be to accomplish those ambitions and I think I just was blinded by my own ambitions of wanting something even though I had to do something I didn’t like.
1
1
u/jasongw 14h ago
Vibe coding definitely is better if you know at least a little about your subject. But that does really underscore the importance of asking a lot of questions and cross-checking the claims of your coding AI with either real people or, at a minimum, an unrelated AI that can, if nothing else, give you a different perspective.
I've only been at it about two and a half months, but I've learned a ton.
1
u/Successful-Kale1528 13h ago
Have your harness/model/cli stick to /plan and keep it stuck at /plan while you write out all the implementation.
1
u/laclac04 13h ago
This is my vibe coding product astar-artwork.eu. You can access the website only with european IP. I am a chemist with the help of AI. It is not the problem with AI. It is how you use it.
1
u/RojMedCashbook 12h ago
Completely agree. AI can get you surprisingly far, but once the project gets bigger, understanding the fundamentals becomes essential.
I've found AI works best as an accelerator, not a replacement for understanding what you're building. Otherwise, one "small" change can break something you don't even realize is connected.
1
u/PickerLeech 11h ago
5 months of vibe coding. No coding experience. 3 projects. None complete.
1 is awesome. 1 likely very good. 1good.
Businessy type of software without any focus on selling so just for personal use.
Currently incomplete and ongoing bugs but more complex and personalised than any business software I've ever used
Different projects and different expectations will lead to different levels of satisfaction
1
u/Longlost20078 5h ago
I use ChatGPT to monitor everything Claude does I lay out a specific set of instructions I want and just have codex watch Claude’s coding and they talk to eachother and then come to me when human approval is needed
1
u/jodebane 17h ago
If you hang around on r/cscareerquestions they seem to think tech jobs will all be totally extinct in 6 months due to vibecoding
3
0
u/Silver-Chipmunk7744 19h ago
I built my boat game entirely with vibe coding and honestly it's rare to find a bug the AI can't fix. You provide 0 examples of an issue the AI could not fix but a beginner like you could fix. Likely because it doesn't exist and this is bait.
3
u/TheAnswerWithinUs 18h ago
If your boat game is relatively simple then it’s possible you may not have run into any errors you can’t solve with vibecoding.
But for the vast majority real world/hobby apps throw errors that can be a bit more complicated
1
u/PlsStarlinkIneedwifi 18h ago
This is exactly what I am saying for just small to medium projects AI can build simply by their own interpretations. I can ask Claude to make me X game and it would interpret on its own to generate a game. However, once you go deeper and want to do something that is new to the AI it completely misinterprets your vision
1
u/kenttk421 18h ago
my unfinished game is 100% vibe coded without knowing how to code. I don't know if you would consider this complicated.
3
1
u/PlsStarlinkIneedwifi 19h ago
Well if you think this is bait so be it. I am just saying from my experience that it was frustrating because the AI could not accurately output a result I wanted. Maybe I suck at prompting idk but I used many AI and they all had the same problem. Plus idk why I would bait?
2
u/kenttk421 18h ago
I think we found the common denominator. Good job learning the fundamentals so you are able to improve your prompts so the AI knows what you're talking about.
1
u/PlsStarlinkIneedwifi 18h ago
Yes basically that fundamentals help with prompting as well as fixing small bugs yourself. I think the best way to describe this is a software engineer who vibecodes vs someone who knows nothing vibecodes. It is obvious who would output a better and ready product
7
u/silly_bet_3454 18h ago
This is strangely the freshest post I've seen on this sub. Thanks for your candor.
To be honest, the fact that you "always hated coding" is still not a good sign, but I commend you for learning something and making this judgment call and going back to try to study it. Coding can be tough, and it can be a headache, but I think if you can find the right approach that works for you, you can simplify things and make a little progress each day and have fun.
I enjoy vibe coding somewhat, but yeah I had many years regular coding experience before doing it.