My coding skills leave something to be desired. I never stuck with the instructional books and guides long enough to truly create the kinds of apps and programs I wanted to see. AI chatbots powered by large language models have changed that. Now I can write down my vision for something like a visual gallery of horror movies or a twist on a classic PC game and the chatbot will turn my plain English into hundreds of lines of code -- and bring my vision to life.
CNET
This is called vibe coding. For experienced coders, it can make work go much more quickly. But for non-coders, it puts the tools of programming in our hands. Having the right mindset for the process can be the difference between a good or bad experience -- even if you don't achieve the results you were originally hoping for. Sometimes, you'll need to learn what you can and can't vibe code as you go.
You can choose Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude or another chatbot, and each will have their own features and quirks. Your approach and how you prompt the chatbot are just as important as the model you choose, as it's basing everything on your instructions.
Here are five tips that can help you as you get started with vibe coding.
Know your chatbot
The chatbot you use does matter, although the type of model may matter more than who made it.
When attempting to create the same app using both Gemini 2.5 Flash and Gemini 3 Pro, it became apparent that a different approach was needed with the former to achieve a similar output of the more advanced Pro model. This means more specific intent and instructions with the prompts and from my experience, more manual work.
From my time vibe coding with Gemini 2.5 Flash, it often made the process more hands-on, which I wasn't looking for. When refining the app, it would only provide code for just the section that was altered, leaving me to swap the code out manually or follow up with another prompt to provide the entire code. In contrast, using Gemini 3 Pro, it would automatically provide the entire body of code.
Your mileage may vary, but if you're deciding between using a "fast" or a "thinking" model for your vibe coding project, you may need more skill and training to work with a fast model. If all you have available is a fast or a less advanced model and it's asking you to perform code edits that you're uncomfortable with, you can prompt the chatbot again to provide all of the code (or set a rule to provide the entire body of the code with the edits after each change has been made).
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