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Show HN: Vibe coding a bookshelf with Claude Code

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Re: Show HN: Vibe coding a bookshelf with Claude Code

#111

Post by nithinbekal »

> Four hundred and sixty books is not a scale problem. Knowing when to delete working code is not something an AI can decide for you.

This is such a key thing I remind myself when I build apps like this for myself. I have a similar app that has a page with 900-odd ratings, and another with 550 owned books. I decided that I won't bother with infinite scroll or complex search and filtering until my browser can no longer handle rendering that data. "Find in page" works well enough for me for now.

Re: Show HN: Vibe coding a bookshelf with Claude Code

#112

Post by simonw »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #69
spzb wrote: post #56

I am yet to see a vibe coded success that isn't a small program that already exists in multiple forms in the training data. Let's see something ground-breaking. If AI coding is so great and is going to take us to 10x or 100x productivity let's see it generate a new, highly efficient compression algorithm or a state-of-art travelling salesman solution.

Forget utterly groundbreaking things, I want to hear maintainers of complex, actively developed, and widely used open-source projects (e.g. ffmpeg, curl, openssh, sqlite) start touting a massive uptick in positive contributions, pointing to a concrete influx of high-quality AI-assisted commits. If AI is indeed a 10x force multiplier, shouldn't these projects have seen 10 years' worth of development in the last year?…

> I want to hear maintainers of complex, actively developed, and widely used open-source projects (e.g. ffmpeg, curl, openssh, sqlite) start touting a massive uptick in positive contributions

That's obviously not going to happen, because AI tools can't solve for taste. Just because a developer can churn out working code with an LLM doesn't mean they have the skills to figure out what the right working code to contribute to a project is, and how to do so in a way that makes the maintainers lives easier and not harder.

That skill will remain rare.

(Also SQLite famously refuses to accept external contributions, but that's a different issue.)

Re: Show HN: Vibe coding a bookshelf with Claude Code

#113

Post by simonw »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #97
anthonypasq wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the creator of claude code said on twitter he hasnt opened an ide in a month and merged 200 prs.

Might the creator of Claude Code have some … incentives … to develop like that, or at least claim that he does? As someone who frequently uses Claude Code, I cannot say that a year's worth of features/improvements have been added in the last month. It bears repeating: if AI is truly a 10x force multiplier, you should expect to see a ~year's worth of progress in a month.

Opus 4.5 is just a few days over a month old. Boris would have had access to that for a while before its release though.

Re: Show HN: Vibe coding a bookshelf with Claude Code

#114

Post by belter »

spzb wrote: post #56

I am yet to see a vibe coded success that isn't a small program that already exists in multiple forms in the training data. Let's see something ground-breaking. If AI coding is so great and is going to take us to 10x or 100x productivity let's see it generate a new, highly efficient compression algorithm or a state-of-art travelling salesman solution.

Every two months, I run a very simple experiment to decide whether I should stop shorting NVDA....Think of it as my personal Pelican on a Bike test. :-)

Here is how it works: I take the latest state of the art model, usually one of the two or three currently being hyped....and ask it to create a short document that teaches Java, Python, or Rust, in 30 to 60 min, complete with code examples. Then I ask the same model to review its own produced artifact, for correctness and best practices.

What happens next is remarkably consistent. The model produces a glowing review, confidently declaring the document “production ready”… while the code either does not compile, contains obvious bugs, or relies on outright bad practices.

When I point this out, the model apologizes profusely and generates a “fixed” version which still contains errors. I rinse and repeat until I give up.

This is still true today, including with models like Opus 4.5 and ChatGPT 5.2. So whenever I read comments about these models being historic breakthroughs, I can’t help but imagine they are mostly coming from teams proudly generating technical debt at 100× the usual speed.

Things go even worst, when you ask the model to review a Cloud Architecture....

Re: Show HN: Vibe coding a bookshelf with Claude Code

#115

Post by pigpop »

spicyusername wrote: post #4

These are the perfect size projects vibe coding is currently good for. At some point you hit a project size that is too large or has too many interdependencies, and you have to be very careful about how you manage the context and should expect the llm to start generating too much code or subtle bugs. Once you hit that size, in my opinion, it's usually best to drop back to brainstorming mode, only use the llm to help…

Or you can apply software architecture methods that are designed to help humans with exactly the same type of problems.

Once your codebase exceeds a certain size, it becomes counter-productive to have code that is dependent on the implementation of other modules (tight coupling). In Claude Code terms this means your current architecture is forcing the model to read too many lines of code into its context which is degrading performance.

The solution is the same as it is for humans:

  "Program to an interface, not an implementation." --Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software (1994)
You have to carefully draw boundaries around the distinct parts of your application and create simple interfaces for them that only expose the parts that other modules in your application need to use. Separate each interface definition into its own file and instruct Claude (or your human coworker) to only use the interface unless they're actually working on the internals of that module.

Suddenly, you've freed up large chunks of context and Claude is now able to continue making progress.

Of course, the project could continue to grow and the relatively small interface declarations could become too many to fit in context. At that point it would be worthwhile taking a look at the application to see if larger chunks of it could be separated from the rest. Managing the number and breadth of changes that Claude is tasked with making would also help since it's unlikely that every job requires touching dozens of different parts of the application so project management skills can get you even further.

Re: Show HN: Vibe coding a bookshelf with Claude Code

#116

Post by fiyec30375 »

BobbyJo wrote: post #84
boplicity wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's see something ground-breaking Why? People don't ask hammers to do much more than bash in nails into walls. AI coding tools can be incredibly powerful -- but shouldn't that power be focused on what the tool is actually good at? There are many, many times that AI coding tools can and should be used to create a "small program that already exists in multiple forms in the training data." I do things like this very…

Yes! I can't tell you the number of times I thought to myself "If only there was a way for this problem to be solved once instead of being solved over and over again". If that is the only thing AI is good at, then it's still a big step up for software IMO.

It's true. Why should everyone look up the same API docs and make the same mistakes when AI can write it for you instantly and correctly?

Re: Show HN: Vibe coding a bookshelf with Claude Code

#117

Post by nindalf »

tharos47 wrote: post #64
nindalf wrote: post #28

This is such a coincidence. I had the same idea a few days ago and also vibe coded a library using Claude. https://nindalf.com/books . The original version of this was meant to encourage me to read more, and I'm pleased to say it succeeded. I hit my goal for the year after a couple of lean years. I also like looking at my highlights and notes and this UI makes it easier to read them. My experience with Claude was mos…

Do you have the code for your book library ? I wanted to do something similar to help me remember the books I read in a year too.

Which part? I have a python code base (https://github.com/nindalf/kindle-highlight-sync) that scrapes read.amazon.com for my book highlights. It then exports the data into markdown files that are imported by my website.

Re: Show HN: Vibe coding a bookshelf with Claude Code

#118

Post by falcor84 »

spzb wrote: post #56

I am yet to see a vibe coded success that isn't a small program that already exists in multiple forms in the training data. Let's see something ground-breaking. If AI coding is so great and is going to take us to 10x or 100x productivity let's see it generate a new, highly efficient compression algorithm or a state-of-art travelling salesman solution.

I am yet to see an "AI doesn't impress me" comment that added anything to the discussion. Yes, there's always going to be a state of the art and things that are as of yet beyond the state of the art.

Re: Show HN: Vibe coding a bookshelf with Claude Code

#119

Post by oleggromov »

Good project, nice write-up.

However, to me as a person with an anti-library as well, this kind of defies the purpose of having it in the first place. I can't say I browse my books too often but when I want to find something, I'd rather browse physical things on a shelf rather than some out-of-date UI with fetched thumbnails. Of course the organization happens in physical space too: this is why we have shelves, labels and such.

Obviously no judgement or criticism for the author, just sharing thoughts.

Re: Show HN: Vibe coding a bookshelf with Claude Code

#120

Post by exe34 »

croes wrote: post #58
aurareturn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are the perfect size projects vibe coding is currently good for. So far... it's going to keep getting better to the point until all software is written this way.

Successfully building an IKEA shelf doesn’t make you a carpenter.

no, but I have furniture. it's important to keep sight of the end goal, unless the carpentry is purely a hobby.
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