Day 27 of 28 · Vibe Coding Challenge
When to Learn Traditional Coding
⏱ 6 min
📊 Intermediate
This might seem like an odd topic for a vibe coding course. But honesty matters: vibe coding is incredibly powerful, and it has limits. Knowing where those limits are — and when traditional coding knowledge helps — makes you a better builder.
What vibe coding does brilliantly
Let's be clear about what you can do with vibe coding that used to require years of training:
Build and deploy full-stack applications. You've done this. Landing pages, dashboards, SaaS products.
Prototype at absurd speed. Ideas that used to take weeks to validate take hours.
Handle standard patterns. Authentication, CRUD operations, API integration, responsive design — AI nails these because they follow well-established patterns.
Learn while building. Every AI interaction teaches you something. You've learned more about web development in 27 days than many bootcamp students learn in months.
Knowledge Check
What kind of tasks does vibe coding handle best?
C
Standard web development patterns — auth, CRUD, APIs, responsive design — anything with well-established approaches
D
Only prototypes that can't go to production
AI excels at standard patterns because it's been trained on millions of examples. Most web applications are 80% standard patterns. That's why vibe coding can build real, production-quality apps — most of the work follows established approaches.
Where vibe coding struggles
Be honest with yourself about these limitations:
Novel algorithms. If you're building something genuinely new — a custom physics engine, a novel compression algorithm, a unique data structure — AI has fewer examples to draw from.
Complex debugging. AI fixes 90% of bugs instantly. But the remaining 10% — race conditions, memory leaks, subtle state management issues — can leave you stuck without the ability to reason about code yourself.
Performance at scale. AI-generated code works, but it might not handle 10,000 concurrent users efficiently. Optimizing for scale requires understanding how code executes under the hood.
Domain-specific logic. Your industry's unique business rules, compliance requirements, or specialized workflows might not be well-represented in AI's training data.
My app works fine with 10 users but becomes extremely slow with 1000 users. The page takes 15 seconds to load. Can you fix it?
I'll investigate...
Found several issues:
1. **N+1 query problem** — For each user in the list, you're making a separate database query for their posts. With 1000 users, that's 1001 queries. Fixed with a JOIN query.
2. **No pagination** — Loading all 1000 users at once. Added pagination (20 per page).
3. **No caching** — Same data re-fetched on every request. Added 5-minute cache.
These are the most common scaling issues. If it's still slow after these fixes, we'd need to profile the database queries — that requires deeper analysis.
↻ Replay conversation
The AI fixed three common issues. But notice what it said at the end: "deeper analysis." At some point, you need to understand what's happening beneath the surface.
Knowledge Check
When does traditional coding knowledge become important?
A
Only when building mobile apps
B
Never — AI handles everything
C
When you hit edge cases — complex debugging, performance at scale, or domain-specific logic that AI can't solve from patterns alone
D
Always — you should learn to code before vibe coding
Vibe coding handles 80% of the work. Traditional coding knowledge helps with the remaining 20% — the edge cases, the performance problems, the bugs that require understanding how code actually works. You don't need it to start, but it extends what you can build.
The smartest learning path
If you decide to learn some traditional coding, here's the most efficient path for vibe coders:
1. Learn to read code better (you started this on Day 7). The more you can read, the better you can debug, modify, and direct AI.
2. Learn JavaScript fundamentals. Variables, functions, arrays, objects, async/await. Not to write from scratch — to understand what AI generates. A few hours of tutorials gives you disproportionate value.
3. Learn one framework's patterns. If you use React, learn hooks, components, and state management. This lets you have more precise conversations with AI.
4. Learn SQL basics. SELECT, INSERT, JOIN, WHERE. Understanding database queries lets you spot performance issues and ask better questions about data.
You don't need a CS degree. You need enough understanding to be a great collaborator with AI.
The hybrid approach
The most effective builders in 2025 combine both:
Use vibe coding for speed. Build the first version, prototype ideas, handle standard patterns, generate boilerplate.
Use traditional knowledge for precision. Debug complex issues, optimize performance, understand architecture, make informed technology decisions.
Let AI teach you. After AI generates code, ask "explain how this works." You learn traditional coding through vibe coding.
You just wrote a useEffect hook with a cleanup function. I see it in my code but I don't fully understand it. Can you explain what it does and why the cleanup is important?
Great question! Here's what's happening:
**useEffect** runs code when a component loads (or when specific data changes).
In your code, it sets up a WebSocket connection when the chat page opens. The **cleanup function** (the `return () => {...}` part) runs when the user leaves the chat page — it closes the WebSocket connection.
**Why cleanup matters:** Without it, every time you navigate to and from the chat page, a new WebSocket connection opens but the old ones never close. After 10 visits, you'd have 10 open connections draining memory and bandwidth.
Think of it like: useEffect turns on the lights when you enter a room, and cleanup turns them off when you leave.
↻ Replay conversation
Knowledge Check
What's the best way for a vibe coder to learn traditional coding?
A
Read textbooks cover to cover
B
Learn as you go — when AI generates code you don't understand, ask it to explain. Learn through building, not before building
C
Watch 100 hours of tutorials before building anything
D
Stop vibe coding and enroll in a 4-year degree program
Learning through building is the most effective approach. You encounter concepts in context (when you actually need them), and AI can explain them at exactly your level. You learn JavaScript's async/await when your API calls need it, not as an abstract concept in a classroom.
Final Check
Is vibe coding a replacement for traditional programming?
A
Yes — traditional coding is obsolete
B
No — vibe coding is just a toy for non-programmers
C
It depends on the programming language
D
Neither — vibe coding is a powerful new approach that works best when combined with some traditional knowledge. Both have their strengths
Vibe coding isn't replacing programming — it's expanding who can build software and how fast. Traditional programmers use AI to move faster. Non-programmers use AI to build things they couldn't before. The combination of both is more powerful than either alone.
🌉
Day 27 Complete
"Vibe coding gets you 80% there. Traditional coding knowledge is the bridge to the other 20%. Learn as you build."
Tomorrow — Day 28
The Vibe Coding Community
You've done it — 28 days of vibe coding. Tomorrow we celebrate what you've built and look at what's next.