Why does a first-year student need a Turing machine (and why it matters more than it seems in the era of "vibe coding")

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This article explains why first-year computer science students should study Turing machines instead of relying only on vibe coding. It argues that understanding formal models helps you build the mental models needed to write and reason about code correctly. The piece presents a Virtual Turing Machine project as a practical teaching tool and links it to existing research on novice programming misconceptions. It also describes features such as validation, visualization, PlantUML export, and JSON support that make the tool easier to use in education.

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