Vibe Coding
Vibe Coding by Gene Kim and Steve Yeggeby Gene Kim and Steve Yegge
Shares rank 59 of 115 programming books by recommenders
People recommend it as a practical guide to solid software engineering practices that stays relevant by avoiding specific tools. Critics say heavy LLM co-writing makes it read as slop.
People recommend it as a practical guide to solid software engineering practices that stays relevant by avoiding specific tools. Critics say heavy LLM co-writing makes it read as slop.
11 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 4
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 36%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 4 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Solid software engineering practices, including TDD
“It's basically a big dose of solid software engineering practices”
Comment from 14 Mar 2026 in “Coders Coded Their Job Away. Why Are So Many of Them Happy About It?” “ends up talking more about TDD than Uncle Bob”
Comment from 26 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Largely written or edited by LLMs
“much of it was co-written through the use of an LLM book editing pipeline, proudly advertised throughout the book”
Comment from 9 Nov 2025 in “AI for Senior Software Engineers” “It was garbage. The book is largely written and edited by LLMs and it shows on every page.”
Comment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Does Gas Town 'steal' usage from users' LLM credits to improve itself?” “it is obvoius that it has significant LLM contribution”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Gas Town's Agent Patterns, Design Bottlenecks, and Vibecoding at Scale” Reads as low-quality AI slop
“invaluable as a textbook example of slop”
Comment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Does Gas Town 'steal' usage from users' LLM credits to improve itself?” “It was a slop how-to book”
Comment from 18 Apr 2026 in “Does Gas Town 'steal' usage from users' LLM credits to improve itself?”
Other programming books people recommend
The four most recommended other programming books, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crafting Interpretersby Robert Nystrom | 60 | 4 | 94% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Clean Codeby Robert C. Martin | 31 | 87 | 26% | 9 | — | — |
| The Pragmatic Programmerby Hunt and Thomas | 28 | 1 | 97% | 7 | — | Approved |
| How to Design Programsby Felleisen, Findler, Flatt and Krishnamurthi | 18 | 2 | 90% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Vibe Codingby Gene Kim and Steve YeggeThis page | 4 | 7 | 36% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
12 of the 13 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“otherwise it would have the same value as a book on a react tutorial”
“It was a slop how-to book”
“invaluable as a textbook example of slop”
“It was garbage. The book is largely written and edited by LLMs and it shows on every page.”
“It doesn't get into the details of particular tools much, so it should stay relevant for a while.”
“It's basically a big dose of solid software engineering practices”
“there's this naivete on display that workers are going to be the ones to reap the benefits of this”
“it is obvoius that it has significant LLM contribution”
“I found Steve Yegge's book to be very helpful”
“ends up talking more about TDD than Uncle Bob”
“Vibe coding is mostly a very well evolved (albeit not perfect or deterministic) code completion/linting/review tool.”
“much of it was co-written through the use of an LLM book editing pipeline, proudly advertised throughout the book”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.