I'm not saying you're wrong, or that I know better.

Yet I have to say that if you are correct, the term is no different than eating tide pods or dry swallowing cinnamon. Why tf would anyone impose such an absurd artificial constraint on themselves, on the tool, or on whatever they are trying to build? Good faith question, I promise.

Constructing detailed prompts to ultimately pair program impressive, complex outcomes is what I assumed vibe coding was. After 35 years of not being able to tell a computer to write the code for me, even getting an 80% coherent first pass of a sophisticated refactor was already radical enough.

If that's what vibe coding is, then nobody should be using that term because it might be the perfect example of "just because you can, doesn't mean you should".