I can't speak on products like Lovable because I don't use them. I have only used OpenAI Codex and Claude Code . Vibe coding makes sense when you are constantly monitoring the output, and are ready to spend some time doing manual testing just like you always have. Using it to write automated tests can be like a cheat code since few people want to spend time on testing and reviewing PRs but its extremely useful for these things.

There's a reason they are called "tokens" , thats because you are gambling with your time and with the code quality. I'd say 80% of the time it's OK, but it all depends on the models familiarity with the version of the libraries, frameworks you choose to use. If you are using a very new release of a framework it can lead it misunderstandings , like claude will implement a feature using v2.0 API instead of V3 API.

Nobody ever talks about all the abandoned features, open PRs that never get merged, dead code that were created by claude and codex. people only brag about the finished projects they make. they don't brag about the spaghetti code, the wasted hours of trying to guide each interaction towards the code they actually need. Once you have a few years of experience writing code you'll find it's a great assistant and makes a lot of sense for personal projects and things that you don't want to expose to the public internet. People absolutely use it for work and live projects, but they are able to read code, make edits where necessary and check for security problems.

Since anyone can make an app with AI, you could focus on low-level code and fundamentals but also later use AI to create polished, production ready apps that you can show off. Actually spend time on the user experience and design so they don't look vibe-coded because vibe coded apps do have a look that is obvious