AI is forcing us to learn more
If we had to choose the one new thing of 2025, it would probably be Vibe Coding. This is one of the new paradigms that we, as developers, had to adapt to this year. This new reality is something you cannot bypass or ignore, you need to embrace it and find the best way to incorporate it into your toolbox.
It's obvious that this new tool is really powerful, but it will only be useful if you learn how to properly use it. You can accelerate your productivity: when working on a new task, you can start with a prompt and eventually get a working solution that you need to commit and send to your peers for review. This is when the important part comes, and there are a few principles you need to follow.
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First and most important: Are you familiar with the proposed solution? If so, you can quickly review it and be fully confident that what you're sending for review is something you can explain and that you would probably write without the help of AI.
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Second option: You understand the code, but you would probably write a different solution. Ask yourself why: Is your approach better than the one proposed? Is it because there are other patterns in the codebase that you normally follow, and this new approach breaks those patterns? Maybe it's better to follow the existing pattern first, then create another PR refactoring everything, but only if there's a real benefit to adopting a new approach.
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Third option: You don't really understand it, but it works! This is the moment when you need to take a step back. Read about it, ask your AI agent to explain the generated code, and understand why this option was chosen over something you're more familiar with.
