Is all vibe coding actually like that too or does some of it actually work?

It’s all like that.

How bad that is - for you - depends on your patience and your learning style.

When I use it, my experience usually lets me recognize the mistakes and correct them quickly. So it’s just a lazy convenience. Most of the time.

I’ve had it make subtle mistakes that cost me significant amounts of time to cleanup after letting the vibe code run for a few minutes.

I’m aware that particular mistake cost me more time that vibe coding has ever saved me.

I don’t mind, because my employer is excited about AI right now, and I get paid for my time, and I don’t work unpaid overtime.

So - to your implied questions:

Is AI bad at coding?

Yes. It will get better. But today, it is worse than most people think. Obvious problems are easily fixed. Subtle problems are being released daily all over the Internet to combine to cause headaches later.

Should you try it, anyway?

Of course! You’ll learn something and it might do a good enough job for what you need. If you stick with it, you’ll learn enough to do what you need.

Is vibe coding a better oath forward than learning a programming language?

Absolutely not. If you need to succeed, and had to pick one, learn to code.

But they’re not mutually exclusive. It’s probably impossible to vibe code for long without learning to actually code.

So I say, Dive in! You’ll be complaining with the rest of us, soon! Maybe together we will make it a bit better.