Coding is Dead. Long Live Vibes

Coding is Dead. Long Live Vibes THE BELAMY WEEKLY NEWSLETTER OF AIM Monday, Apr 14, 2025 | By Amit Naik The software development stack is being rewritten, prompt by prompt. Last week marked a defining shift in how the world builds software. Across product launches, platform updates, and usage spikes, it became clear: vibe coding isn't a meme anymore; it's a movement. So, what is vibe coding? In Andrej Karpathy's words, it's a new kind of coding where you give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists. From Google's Firebase Studio and Canva Code to Bolt, Replit, Lovable, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot, everyone is building—not with code—but with intent. And increasingly, with nothing more than a text prompt. It's not just developers. Designers, founders, and students are all building and deploying apps in hours. No IDEs. No boilerplate. Just describe it, and the AI builds it.  We, at AIM, ran an internal vibe coding workshop last Friday using Lovable—and within 40 minutes, we built a fully functional CRM dashboard with admin controls, analytics, and chatbot integration, all without writing a single line of code! So what changed last week? Before we answer that question, let us take a look at some of the top stories of the week.  Prime Video recently cut UI latency 7.6x by ditching JavaScript for Rust—rewriting its living room app in Rust + WebAssembly for smoother transitions, lightning-fast loads, and a single-language architecture. Read more here.  "To MCP or not to MCP?" When even Sundar Pichai is quoting Shakespeare, you know something big is brewing. MCP, aka model context protocol, is fast becoming the USB-C of AI—connecting models to the real world in real time. Read the full story here.  "Google has had two years to kill Perplexity—and it hasn't," said Perplexity chief Aravind Srinivas, as the $9 billion AI startup bets on a Google-proof future with Comet, its new agentic browser. Read on.  With AI becoming the new foundation across every subject, from engineering to the humanities, India's education system is about to be rewritten. Check out the full story here.  Caught up on the top stories? Now, let's explore some exciting collaborations and exclusive insights from the AIM ecosystem, brought to you with a unique twist outside our standard editorial content.  [Webinar Alert] AIM x NVIDIA Join us for an exclusive masterclass with NVIDIA on April 30, 2025, where you'll learn how to design, deploy, and optimise multi-agent AI systems for real-world tasks. Led by NVIDIA's Shreyans Dhankhar, this masterclass is your gateway to the future of agentic AI. Register now to claim your spot! [Last Call] AIM x DBS Tech — Don't Miss This! Can AI really understand human emotions—or is it just faking empathy with clever code? Join us for the final countdown to AIM DECODE on April 15, 2025, where we decode the emotional intelligence of AI. Register now! Finished registering? Great—now step into the world of exclusive insights and updates from the AIM Partner Ecosystem, where industry leaders share breakthroughs, best practices, and behind-the-scenes stories shaping the future of AI and tech. Designing AI That Reflects Your Mission—Not Replaces It AI adoption is no longer optional, but doing it wrong can cost your company its identity. The real challenge? Aligning AI with your mission without losing sight of your values or workforce. That's exactly what ValueLabs is getting right—embracing Vertical AI, reskilling teams, and building agentic systems that amplify human strengths instead of replacing them. It's a blueprint for responsible, mission-aligned transformation. Read how they are doing it here.  Mapping Trust into Data Transformation  Reengineering data platforms often fails not because of poor tech, but because teams lack visibility into how data flows and transforms. That's where solutions like DataSwitch's DataMaps quietly make a difference—bringing clarity to data flow, enabling smarter transformations, and bridging the gap between legacy systems and cloud-native architectures. Explore now! Quickly, taking you back to vibe coding—where you don't code, you just vibe and let AI handle everything from UI to deployment. And last week, it wasn't just one tool—"it was a full-stack shift across the industry". The Stack Has Flipped Google launched Firebase Studio, a full-stack agentic IDE powered by Gemini. With over 60 templates, built-in agents for API generation, testing, and deployment, Firebase is now an end-to-end development suite. No setup, no frameworks—just a prompt.  Canva introduced Canva Code, allowing users to build interactive widgets (calculators, forms, maps) using plain language. Alongside this, Canva Sheets now combines spreadsheet power with AI—Magic Insights, Magic Charts, and visual-first data analysis. Canva, once a design platform, now rivals low-code dev stacks.  Meanwhile, Bolt integrated Stripe, making it possible to build full SaaS products—including payments—with a single command. Bolt hit $30M ARR in four months with just 20 employees. GitHub Copilot added agent mode across VS Code with support for Claude 3.5, Gemini 2.5, and GPT-4o. It can now edit files, run terminal commands, debug code, and handle multi-file generation natively. Cursor Slips, Lovable Rises Once the poster child for AI-native development, Cursor is now losing its edge. Complaints about hidden pricing, degraded performance, and forced upgrades to paid Claude plans have seen developers shift elsewhere. Lovable, on the other hand, has become the go-to tool for shipping MVPs. With a sketch + prompt interface, seamless Supabase integration, and intuitive flows, Lovable enables full-stack deployment without writing code. ARR: $17 million in 3 months. User sentiment: "...from idea to prototype in under a day." It's ideal for early-stage products, indie hackers, and founders. While Cursor remains valuable for deeper refactoring, Lovable now owns the prototyping space. Meanwhile, Replit continues to push forward. With its agent IDE and recent valuation near $3 billion, the platform is now positioned to onboard the next billion software creators, regardless of coding background. Reid Hoffman's viral "LinkedIn clone in one prompt" only accelerated its popularity. Not to mention, Indian actor and filmmaker Kamal Haasan is a fan of Replit—and can't stop raving about it. Devin 2.0 also made headlines. With a 96% price cut and new agent-native features like task planning, documentation, and multi-instance environments, it's already the top pull-request contributor at Gumroad. Coding is Changing, But Engineers Still Matter The promise of vibe coding is clear: remove friction, collapse development cycles, and democratise software creation. But it comes with trade-offs. AI struggles with: Long-term maintainability, scalability and architecture, and context-aware debugging.  As François Chollet rightly put it: "Code is largely worthless. Problem-solving is the asset." These tools are powerful multipliers for experienced developers. But for beginners, they can be a trap: hallucinated logic, brittle scaffolding, and unreadable codebases. Yet, the shift is real. The new default interface for code is language. The identity of the builder is expanding. And with native-language support from Amazon Q, GitHub Copilot, and others, the next wave of developers may not code in Python or JavaScript—but in Hindi, Spanish, or Kannada. We're not replacing engineers. We're redesigning what engineering looks like. [Must Watch] In our latest episode of Tech Talks, GitHub's Karan MV explains how Copilot is redefining the developer experience in India—enabling coding in Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, and more. From debugging in your native tongue to building entire apps with natural language, this is a glimpse into the future of inclusive, AI-powered software development. Vibe coding isn't a trend. It's a rewrite of who builds, how fast, and with what tools. And the past week proves that we have already crossed over. Till next time,  Amit Raja Naik For Brand collaborations, write to info@aimmediahouse.com You received this email because you signed up to the updates from AIM. Click here to unsubscribe if you do not want to receive emails from us.