"How many keys must a dev press down, before you can call them a dev" - Bob Dylan (if Bob Dylan sat in Building 32 instead of roaming route 66).
Enough pop-culture references (neither of which maintaining the 'pop'element recently beyond seperately occuring in the minds of those who aren't toothless, drooling, and in state of angry delerium only soothed by a nap and warm milk). "Vibe-Coding" is a new bit ( or 80 in ASCII) of pop-culture terminology coined by Andrej Karpathy in a post on X
There's a new kind of coding I call "vibe coding", where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists. It's possible because the LLMs (e.g. Cursor Composer w Sonnet) are getting too good. Also I just talk to Composer with SuperWhisper…
— Andrej Karpathy (@karpathy) February 2, 2025
I personally started "Vibe-Coding" in a raw form when I realized I could produce finalized scripts with AI then debug and adjust on the fly, using the AI to facilitate a hybrid learning-production model on my dev path.
I'd written Hello world a few times a few years back. I built a calculator once. But I didn't stick with it, and I didn't learn the, or any, language beyond simple read-type-repeat in simple form.
Time passes, I have an idea for a project and use Chatgpt to help build an audio plugin. It mixes language syntax and I'm just learning what the pieces mean, so its like being the bastard little brother of Alexander the great; in one ear there's orgiastic and wild freedom calling you to worship Python in all its simple serpentine sheen. In the other ear is the strict militaristic call to arms you'd sat down to hear, a rigid JUCE plugin scripted in C++ so that a weak guitar signal can be modulated to a battle cry.
There are also upload limits further dampening this sheer determination to create something with little rigorous effort and traing. So, like with the transcriptions we all must journey down uttering those first words...
print("Hello World")
...determination gave way to frustration, dreams gave way to whims, and perseverance gave way to defeat.
But, here I am, feeling the "vibe". Protoyping. Debugging. Writing scri....no, writing 'prompts'. Steering. Guiding. Visualizing. But not scripting. I'm not a programmer, not this time.
"This isn't flying; its falling, with style"
I made a desktop app. It's a mini-player for Youtube videos made to improve my desktop experience while multi-tasking. I learned browsers already implemnted this (with my being unaware of "Picture-in-Picture" features) but still require the primary tab to be open in browser. I have 5 tabs currently, and I know where the music is coming from, its Youtube. I'd like to watch at the same time, but I'm writing this article and it requires most of my attention. I've been violating Youtube's browser-focus condition without my knowing.
So I made...no, guided CLAUDE-4 to build... "Porthole". It uses the iframe API from Google,web2 sign-in through edge (for premium benefits if applicable) and necessary security features for current build. It's no more than a mini-player which is Always-at-the-Front. Made for personal enjoyment of glancing at the video during a podcast to see reactions or on screen content, but it also serves the purpose of freeing me from my life of sin having been violating Youtube's terms for my lack of wanting more than to sit, watch, and listen.
Excerpt from AI-Generated Technical & Legal Overview
"8. Developer Intent & Use Case
As the developer, my primary motivation was to solve a personal workflow issue: I found myself constantly pushing YouTube to background tabs while working, essentially using it as an audio-only service. This behavior:
- Violates YouTube's Design: YouTube is a video platform, not a music streaming service
- Hurts Creators: Reduces engagement metrics and ad visibility
- Degrades Experience: Misses visual content, captions, and community features
Porthole ensures videos remain visible and engaged with, aligning user behavior with YouTube's intended experience.
[...]
Enhanced Productivity Integration
- Stays visible during work
- Doesn't interfere with browser workflows
- Quick drag-and-drop functionality
- Maintains focus on primary tasks
10. Conclusion
Porthole represents a technical implementation that:
- Respects YouTube's terms of service completely
- Enhances the intended viewing experience
- Promotes proper content consumption
- Maintains all YouTube features and monetization
- Improves user engagement with video content
By keeping videos visible and using official APIs, Porthole actually serves YouTube's interests better than traditional browser-based viewing, where videos often play unseen in background tabs."
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