Slate Daily Feed What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future - TBD Tries... Vibe Coding
Apr 5, 2026
Clive Thompson, journalist and author who analyzes tech trends, and Greg Lavallee, Slate’s CTO who built the Claude Code setup. They try “vibe coding,” prompt an AI to design and prototype a web game, test the playable prototype, and debate how agentic AIs speed prototyping while reshaping junior programmer roles and newsroom trade-offs.
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Vibe Coding’s Hype Versus Setup Friction
- Vibe coding promises noncoders can make software by instructing agentic AI like Claude Code to write and run code for them.
- The hosts struggled with terminals and setup, highlighting a gap between marketing hype and real UX friction for novices.
Noncoder Struggles With Terminal Setup
- Evan, a noncoder, spent nearly an hour fumbling in the terminal before Claude Code was installed and interacting with the terminal.
- Greg guided him through commands, prompts, and installing developer tools to get started.
Swarm Agents Do The Repetitive Coding Work
- Agentic coding uses multiple AI agents in parallel: one writes code, one tests it, others inspect errors and iterate until tests pass.
- Clive describes this swarm approach as ideal for repetitive, testable coding tasks.