vibe coding reality check
3 months building, 2 users, 1 epic crash
The Coding Bootcamp Mistake
I started college as a Computer Science major. Technically it was a dual-program called "Computer Science & Business"...
You'd get one degree in CS, and then pick a business school major to double major with…
But, I made a big mistake:
I switched to business school halfway through because I was more interested in "having fun" at school than I was taking the time to actually learn…
I spent a year after school in a consulting job I hated, and came to the realization that I had made a horrible, horrible… horrible mistake…
So I did what any desperate 22-year-old would do... I enrolled in a $5k coding bootcamp that my friend worked for…
(yes, I spent $60K/yr in college to do nothing meaningful, only to graduate and spend $5k learning a watered-down version of what I should have been doing those 4 years…)
The Ferrari That Broke Down at McDonald's
Anyways, these coding bootcamps usually end with a "capstone project" which is what you take around to show during job interviews…
This final project was supposed to be my golden ticket… I still think it's a dope idea, feel free to "take it" if you'd like…
It was a stock portfolio app where you could follow traders and "ride" their investments…
Think Robinhood meets Twitter… Joe Schmoe seems to be great at running his little day trading portfolio, so you follow him and invest in exactly the same stuff as him…
I spent 2 months building this thing… In hindsight, the UI was crap… But the concept was solid… I was ready to become the next tech unicorn founder...
Here's what actually happened:
The moment two people logged into my app at the same time? CRASH. Complete system failure. Like watching a Ferrari break down in the McDonald's drive-thru.
Turns out my Node.js backend was handling everything in one big blocking-function.
Meaning whenever someone tried to analyze their portfolio, the entire app would freeze and wait.
One user = fine-ish. Two users = dead app. I'd show this thing off in job interviews, crossing my fingers in hopes it wouldn't crash.
Writing code and building solutions are two completely different skills. I could make things look pretty. I could copy-paste from Stack Overflow like a champ. But I had ZERO understanding of the patterns that make systems actually work under pressure.
A simple task queue would have fixed everything. But nobody taught me that. Look, I see this happening everywhere now. People are crushing it with Claude and ChatGPT, spinning up apps faster than ever.
But what happens when your creation actually gets users? The difference between a product that will last and one that will dissolve like sugar cubes in a glass of water?
Understanding the patterns that make systems bulletproof. Specifically, a lot of newbies struggle with Backend development.
So that's what I cover in my newest Youtube video. I break down the development patterns & tools that will help separate you from… wannabees.
Watch it here: youtu.be/lb5ZNeOtjFc
No fluff. Just the stuff that matters. Talk soon, Sean