> Code was always a means to an end. Unlike poetry or prose, end users don’t read or care about code.

Yes and no. Code is not art, but software is art.

What is art, then? Not something that's "beautiful", as beauty is of course mostly subjective. Not even something that works well.

I think art is a thing that was made with great care.

It doesn't matter if some piece of software was vibe-coded in part or in full, if it was edited, tested, retried enough times for its maker to consider it "perfect". Trash is something that's done in a careless way.

If you truly love and use what you made, it's likely someone else will. If not, well... why would anyone?