Simon Willison: Vibe Coding and Agentic Engineering Are Converging — And That Troubles Me
Simon Willison·high signal
In a May 6 blog post, Willison admits the clean line between vibe coding (non-programmers using AI without review) and agentic engineering (professionals maintaining standards) has collapsed in his own practice. He now treats Claude Code output like another team's code — a semi-black box trusted until it breaks — and argues proof-of-use matters more than test coverage or documentation quality. Key insight: productivity jumping from 200 to 2,000 lines/day demands upstream redesign of processes built around expensive engineering timelines.