Democracy in Software Development: The Rise of Vibe Coding

Abstract

Software development as an engineering discipline is characterized by tension between abstraction and precision. It has undergone a tremendous transformation over the decades, from highly rigid machine language programming to the modern day vibe coding that tends to democratize software development through automation, abstraction, and artificial intelligence (AI). Vibe coding, a term that refers to AI-assisted and intuition-driven software development methodology. This paper first provides the historical trajectory of software development, arguing that each stage has incrementally democratized software development. The current shift powered by Large Language Models (LLMs) represents the most significant stride in the democratization of software development yet. This paper also enumerates the implications of this shift and the evolution of software development expertise. It concludes that while vibe coding has its challenges, it aligns with the historical evolution of software development, which is the relentless pursuit of higher-level abstraction to harness human creativity and collective intelligence.