An approach to programming that could enhance digital skills development across the country
I’m a big fan of Cursor for coding with AI, and this movement now has a name – “vibe coding” – which allows people to create programmes by describing what they want in natural language and letting AI handle much of the actual coding. As South Africa grapples with developing digital skills and implementing new coding curricula in schools, vibe coding represents a potentially transformative approach that could democratise software development across the country.
The timing couldn’t be better. With the Department of Basic Education rolling out coding and robotics as part of the new curriculum framework, and the country’s ongoing push to develop digital literacy, vibe coding offers a bridge between traditional programming education and practical software creation. Rather than spending months learning syntax and programming languages, South Africans can now focus on problem-solving and creative thinking while AI handles the technical heavy lifting.
What Exactly Is Vibe Coding?
Vibe coding is a term for coding with the assistance of AI – essentially, using AI tools to do the writing code while you focus on guiding the process with ideas and descriptions. The phrase originated as a Silicon Valley buzzword, coined by AI expert Andrej Karpathy, to describe “using AI tools for the heavy lifting in coding to quickly build software.” In vibe coding, you don’t write every line of code by hand. Instead, you communicate what you want (the “vibe” of the programme or feature), and the AI generates the code for you.
This approach marks a significant shift in how software can be created. Traditionally, developing software meant knowing programming languages and writing precise syntax. But AI advancements are changing that paradigm completely. Modern AI coding assistants can understand plain English problem descriptions and produce working code. As Karpathy humorously noted, “the hottest new programming language is English”, meaning that describing what your programme should do in English can be as effective as writing the code yourself.
For South African educators implementing the new coding curriculum, this presents an interesting opportunity. Rather than overwhelming learners with complex syntax from day one, teachers could introduce programming concepts through natural language descriptions, allowing students to see immediate results and understand the logic behind software creation before diving into traditional coding languages.
The term “vibe coding” gained popularity after Karpathy shared his experience of building software by fully giving in to the vibes — essentially forgetting about the code and just iteratively prompting the AI. “It’s not really coding — I just see stuff, say stuff, run stuff, and copy-paste stuff, and it mostly works,” he wrote, highlighting how different this feels from traditional programming. In other words, vibe coding is more like conversing with your computer about what you want, rather than manually typing out every function.
This conversational approach to programming has opened up software development to people who might not be fluent in any coding language. One enthusiast described vibe coding as programming “by chatting with LLMs or even by voice” instead of writing code directly. For a country like South Africa, where English proficiency varies and multiple languages are spoken, this natural language approach could make programming more accessible across different linguistic backgrounds.
Why This Matters for South Africa’s Digital Future
AI assistance is dramatically lowering the barrier to entry for creating software. People with ideas but little coding experience can now build prototypes by describing their vision to an AI. Meanwhile, even experienced developers are using these tools to automate rote tasks and speed up development significantly.
This democratisation of coding couldn’t come at a better time for South Africa. The country faces several digital challenges: a skills shortage in the tech sector, the need to modernise various industries, and the imperative to prepare young people for a digital economy. According to recent industry reports, South Africa needs to produce significantly more software developers and digital creators to meet economic demands and compete globally.
The new coding and robotics curriculum in South African schools represents a step in the right direction, but traditional programming education can be daunting for many learners. Vibe coding offers an alternative pathway that focuses on computational thinking and problem-solving rather than memorising syntax. Students can learn to break down problems, think logically about solutions, and see their ideas come to life immediately, all crucial skills for the digital economy.
Consider the practical applications for South African contexts: a small business owner in Soweto could describe a simple inventory management system and have AI generate a working prototype; a teacher in the Eastern Cape could create educational apps tailored to local curriculum needs; or a community organisation in the Western Cape could build a platform to coordinate local services. These aren’t hypothetical scenarios — they’re becoming reality as AI coding tools become more accessible.
Software engineers have remained in hot demand, but the arrival of AI that can ‘vibe’ code into existence has some industry leaders predicting big changes, with experts expecting software engineering to look very different by the end of 2025 due to these AI capabilities. For South Africa, this could mean leapfrogging traditional development bottlenecks and accelerating digital transformation across sectors.
How Vibe Coding Actually Works
Vibe coding works through a tight interplay between human guidance and AI generation. Humans provide instructions, descriptions, or goals in everyday language, and AI tools translate those into code. The process is typically iterative and interactive, making it particularly suitable for educational environments.
You describe what you want: For example, you might say “Create a simple web page that displays the current weather for Cape Town when a user enters the suburb name.” This description (called a prompt) is given to an AI coding assistant. The beauty of this approach is that you’re thinking about the problem from a user’s perspective rather than getting bogged down in technical implementation details.
The AI generates code: The AI, which has been trained on vast amounts of programming knowledge, will attempt to produce code that fulfils your request. It might write the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript needed for the weather page automatically. Essentially, the AI acts like an autocomplete on steroids, it predicts the code that matches your description. This immediate translation from idea to working code can be incredibly motivating for learners who might otherwise struggle with traditional programming approaches.
You review and refine: After the AI provides some code, you (the human) check it. Does the web page work? Maybe the AI’s first attempt has issues or isn’t quite what you envisioned. You then tell the AI what to change or fix. For instance, “The page looks too plain, make the design more colourful and add error handling if the suburb is not found.” The AI will take this feedback and modify the code accordingly.
Iterate as needed: This cycle continues, describe changes, get new code, test it out, until you’re satisfied with the result. Because the AI can produce a lot of code quickly, you might go through multiple iterations in a short time. This rapid prototyping capability is particularly valuable in educational settings where students can experiment with different approaches without getting frustrated by syntax errors.
Modern AI coding tools are quite powerful beyond just generating code. They can also help debug and improve existing programmes. For example, if the code doesn’t run due to an error, you can paste the error message into the AI chat and ask for help. Karpathy noted that when he gets error messages, he simply copies and pastes them into the AI and “usually, that fixes it”. The AI can read the error and suggest a correction in code.
This debugging capability is particularly valuable for South African educators working with the new coding curriculum. Teachers don’t need to be expert programmers themselves to help students troubleshoot problems. The AI can explain errors in plain English and suggest fixes, making coding education more accessible even in schools where technical expertise might be limited.
Real-World Examples That Demonstrate the Power
To illustrate how this works in practice, imagine you want a programme that takes a list of South African provinces and sorts them alphabetically. Traditionally, you’d have to write the code, perhaps in Python, using the correct syntax. With vibe coding, you might open your AI coding tool and simply say: “I need a Python function that takes a list of South African province names and returns them sorted alphabetically.”
The AI would then produce something like:
def sort_provinces(province_list):
"""Return the list of South African provinces sorted alphabetically."""
return sorted(province_list)
If you then say, “Also make it case-insensitive and add the option to sort by population size if population data is provided,” the AI could refine the code accordingly. You didn’t have to recall the exact syntax for sorting with custom parameters; the AI handled it based on your description.
For more complex tasks, vibe coding can generate larger blocks of code or multiple files. One blogger shared how he simply described a full application, and the AI built a working (though rough) prototype. He prompted the AI to “Create me a React app from scratch, an app which can take a photo of a menu in a restaurant, translate it, then show a list of food with images. It must be a PWA with a camera button.” The AI generated an entire React project structure and code in response.
This type of rapid prototyping has enormous potential for South African contexts. Imagine a student in the new coding curriculum describing an app to help local taxi drivers coordinate routes more efficiently, or a small business owner wanting to create a digital marketplace for local crafts. With vibe coding, these ideas can become working prototypes in hours rather than months.
AI-generated code based on human descriptions can achieve impressive results quickly. In one real-world example, an enthusiast used vibe coding to create a web app for a DIY drawing robot. He described to the AI how the app should take an SVG image and convert it to motor commands for the drawing machine. The AI produced a “functional-seeming site” that did exactly that, allowing him to finally realise a project he’d been thinking about for a year.
What’s remarkable is that this happened before he had even fully built the hardware; the software was ready in the morning, primarily written by the AI from his descriptions. This demonstrates how vibe coding can remove traditional barriers between having an idea and seeing it implemented, which is particularly valuable in a country like South Africa, where access to formal programming education has historically been limited.
Tools Available for South African Vibe Coders
Several tools and platforms have been developed to facilitate vibe coding, and most are accessible to South Africans with decent internet connections. These range from AI-enhanced code editors to web-based coding assistants.
Cursor stands out as one of the flagship tools for vibe coding. It’s an AI-powered code editor based on Visual Studio Code that integrates AI directly into your coding environment. Cursor provides a sidebar chat (called Composer) where you can instruct the AI, and it will write or edit code in your files. One of Cursor’s core features is the ability to “explore code, write new features, and modify existing code” via natural language in the Composer chat.
What makes Cursor particularly appealing for South African users is its control features. You explicitly choose which files or sections of code the AI can see, and it shows you diffs (changes) before applying them. This means you always get to review the AI’s output and accept or reject it. There are also handy “AI buttons” in the interface — for example, a “Fix with AI” button appears when you encounter an error, which triggers the AI to suggest a fix.
Replit offers another excellent option, particularly for educational use. It’s an online coding platform that runs entirely in your browser, meaning no complex setup is required. Replit’s CEO Amjad Masad notes that “vibe coding is already here”, pointing out that 75% of Replit customers never write a single line of code. These users leverage Replit’s libraries, templates, and AI features to build apps without manually coding everything.
For South African schools implementing the new coding curriculum, Replit’s browser-based approach removes hardware barriers. Students can access the platform from any computer with internet access, and teachers can set up coding exercises without worrying about software installation or compatibility issues.
GitHub Copilot represents another powerful option, particularly for users who want to learn traditional coding alongside AI assistance. Copilot works as an extension in code editors and can autocomplete code as you type. It’s evolved to include a chat mode where you can ask coding questions in natural language. You can write a comment like “// sort a list of strings alphabetically” in your code, and Copilot will generate the code to do that below the comment.
ChatGPT and Claude (by Anthropic) can also serve as vibe coding tools, even though they’re not dedicated coding environments. Many people simply open ChatGPT and describe the programme they want. ChatGPT will output code in formatted blocks for you to copy-paste into your environment. The limitation is that these tools don’t run or test the code, but as coding assistants, they’re remarkably powerful and freely accessible to most South Africans.
Implications for Education and Skills Development
The introduction of coding and robotics in South African schools creates an opportunity to rethink how we approach programming education. Traditional methods often focus heavily on syntax and technical details that can overwhelm beginners. Vibe coding offers an alternative that emphasises computational thinking, problem-solving, and creativity.
Consider how this could work in practice: instead of starting with variables and loops, students could begin by describing simple programmes they’d like to create. They might say, “I want to make a quiz about South African history” or “I want to track how much water my family uses each day.” The AI generates working code, and then teachers can use that code to explain underlying concepts.
This approach has several advantages for the South African context. It accommodates different learning styles and backgrounds, doesn’t require extensive technical infrastructure, and produces immediate, tangible results that keep students engaged. Most importantly, it teaches students to think about problems from a user’s perspective and break complex challenges into manageable components.
One researcher observed that “for a total beginner who’s just getting a feel for how coding works, it can be incredibly satisfying to build something that works in the space of an hour” using these AI-assisted methods. This sense of satisfaction and accomplishment could be crucial for building confidence among South African learners who might feel intimidated by traditional programming approaches.
The democratisation aspect of vibe coding also aligns with South Africa’s broader digital transformation goals. The country needs more people who can create digital solutions, not just consume them. Vibe coding could help develop a generation of problem-solvers who understand how technology works and can leverage it to address local challenges.
While vibe coding presents exciting opportunities for South Africa, it’s important to acknowledge some challenges. Reliable internet access remains an issue in many parts of the country, and some AI coding tools require subscription fees that might be prohibitive for individual users or under-resourced schools.
However, the trajectory is encouraging. Many tools offer free tiers, internet infrastructure continues to improve, and the cost of AI services is generally decreasing. Moreover, the potential benefits — faster skills development, increased accessibility to programming, and more rapid prototype development — could significantly outweigh the initial barriers.
For South African businesses, vibe coding represents an opportunity to develop custom solutions without large development teams. Small and medium enterprises could create tailored applications for their specific needs, potentially increasing efficiency and competitiveness. This could be particularly valuable for sectors like agriculture, logistics, and retail, where custom software solutions have traditionally been expensive and inaccessible.
The integration of vibe coding into education could also help address the digital skills gap more quickly than traditional approaches. Instead of waiting for students to complete multi-year programming courses, educators could introduce practical software creation much earlier in the learning process.
Getting Started with Vibe Coding
For South Africans interested in exploring vibe coding, the barrier to entry is remarkably low. Most tools offer free trials or free tiers that allow substantial experimentation. The key is to start with simple projects and gradually work up to more complex applications.
Begin by identifying a genuine problem you’d like to solve, perhaps something related to your work, studies, or community. Describe this problem to an AI coding assistant in plain English, and see what it produces. Don’t worry about understanding every line of code initially; focus on whether the solution addresses your needs and how you might refine it.
The iterative nature of vibe coding means you’ll learn through doing rather than through extensive upfront study. Each conversation with the AI teaches you something about how software works, and over time, you’ll develop an intuitive understanding of programming concepts.
As South Africa continues to develop its digital capabilities and implement new educational curricula, vibe coding offers a promising pathway forward. It democratises software creation, accelerates learning, and could help the country leapfrog traditional development barriers.
The future of programming might indeed be English or Zulu, Afrikaans, or any other language that clearly expresses human intent. For a multilingual country like South Africa, this represents not just a technological advancement but a genuine opportunity for inclusive participation in the digital economy.
The question isn’t whether AI will change how we create software, it already has. The question is how quickly South African educators, entrepreneurs, and innovators will embrace these tools to address local challenges and opportunities. With vibe coding, the power to create digital solutions is literally a conversation away.
Have you experimented with vibe coding or AI-assisted programming? I’d love to hear about your experiences and how you think these tools could benefit South African communities and businesses.