Building Software by Rolling the Dice: A Qualitative Study of Vibe Coding
This program is tentative and subject to change.
Large language models (LLMs) are reshaping software engineering by enabling vibe coding—building software primarily through prompts rather than writing code. Although widely publicized as a productivity breakthrough, little is known about how practitioners actually define and engage in these practices. To shed some light on this emerging phenomenon, we conducted a grounded theory study of 20 vibe-coding videos, including 7 live-streamed coding sessions (~16 hours, 254 prompts) and 13 opinion videos (~5 hours), supported by additional analysis of activity durations and intents of prompts. Our findings reveal a spectrum of behaviors: some vibe coders rely almost entirely on AI without inspecting code, while others examine and adapt generated outputs. Across approaches, all must contend with the stochastic nature of code generation, with debugging and refinement described as “rolling the dice.” Further, divergent mental models, shaped by developers’ expertise and engagement with AI, influence prompting strategies, evaluation practices, and levels of trust. These findings open new directions for research on the future of software engineering and point to practical opportunities for tool design and education.
This program is tentative and subject to change.
Thu 9 JulDisplayed time zone: Eastern Time (US & Canada) change
10:30 - 12:30 | Empirical 2Research Papers / Industry Papers / Re-routed Presentations from Past Years / Journal-First Paper at MB 3.445 | ||
10:30 20mTalk | Does Microservice Adoption Impact the Velocity? A Cohort Study Journal-First Paper Nyyti Saarimäki University of Luxembourg, Mikel Robredo University of Oulu, Valentina Lenarduzzi University of Southern Denmark, Sira Vegas Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Natalia Juristo Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Davide Taibi University of Southern Denmark and University of Oulu | ||
10:50 20mTalk | Building Software by Rolling the Dice: A Qualitative Study of Vibe Coding Research Papers Yi-Hung Chou University of California, Irvine, Boyuan Jiang University of California, Irvine, Yiwen Chen Independent, Mingyue Weng Marketing Creative Associate, Victoria Jackson University of Southampton, Thomas Zimmermann University of California, Irvine, James Jones University of California at Irvine Pre-print | ||
11:10 20mTalk | Beyond the Numbers: Evaluating DevOps Adoption in an Enterprise Software Development Organisation Industry Papers | ||
11:30 20mTalk | How Analysts Use AI in High-Stakes Crime Linkage: An Industrial Study Industry Papers Jessica Woodhams University of Birmingham, Amy Burrell University of Birmingham, Wanyin Li University of Reading, Fahim Ahmed Imperial College London, Matthew Tonkin University of Leicester, Jan Lemeire Vrije Universiteit, Arkady Konovalov University of Birmingham, Steven Frisson University of Birmingham, Mark Webb National Crime Agency, Sarah Galambos National Crime Agency, Vesna Nowack Imperial College London, Dalal Alrajeh Imperial College London | ||
11:50 20mTalk | Views on Internal and External Validity in Empirical Software Engineering: 10 Years Later and Beyond Re-routed Presentations from Past Years Alina Mailach Leipzig University, Janet Siegmund Chemnitz University of Technology, Sven Apel Saarland University, Norbert Siegmund Leipzig University | ||
12:10 20mTalk | How Low Can You Go? The Data-Light SE Challenge Research Papers | ||