Vibe-Coding vs. AI-Assisted Development (www.adaptivealchemist.com)

The piece argues that the popular catch‑all term “vibe coding” has warped how teams think about AI in software development and that this confusion is actively harming decisions around tooling, security, and process. Instead of treating every instance of AI-generated code as the same, the author proposes an AI development matrix with two axes—AI autonomy (autocomplete → agentic workflows) and human rigor (loose oversight → systematic engineering). The central insight: AI multiplies whatever rigor you bring. At low rigor it accelerates chaos and technical debt; at high rigor it amplifies quality and velocity. Technically, the article maps concrete regions: simple autocomplete (IntelliSense, Copilot one‑liners) is low risk; medium autonomy splits into AI‑degraded (large code blocks + little testing → fast‑moving cruft, hallucinations) and AI‑augmented (TDD, code review, CI/CD amplify discipline); high autonomy includes agentic workflows (Claude Code, Cursor agents) that can modify files, run tests, iterate—but only safely with very high process discipline. “Vibe coding” is high autonomy + low rigor—great for prototypes and exploration, disastrous for production. Practical implications: choose tools based on your maturity, enforce testing/specs/architecture, treat AI as an amplifier of practices not a magic bullet, and reserve agentic automation for teams that can sustain rigorous feedback loops.