Look at the screenshots to understand what the author means by 'product'.
We don't need to shit on someone who shared their experiences and thoughts.
The 100 hour gap between a vibecoded prototype and a working product
31–40 of 362 posts
Re: The 100 hour gap between a vibecoded prototype and a working product
#32This seems more like he is bad at describing what he wants and is prompting for “a UI” and then iterating “no, not like that” for 99 hours.
Author admittedly didn’t know how to scale his app for thousands or hundreds of thousands of users. He jokes about it working great on localhost or “my machine”.
Not knocking the premise of the post. It probably works well for one single user if it’s an iPhone or Android app. But his 100 power hours are probably just right for what he ended up launching as he iterated through the requirements and learned how to set this up through reinforced learning and user feedback.
Re: The 100 hour gap between a vibecoded prototype and a working product
#33>> people who say they "vibecoded an app in 30 minutes" are either building simple copies of existing projects, those are not copies, they aren't even features. usually part of a tiny feature that barely works only in demo. with all vibe coding in the world today you still need at least 6 months full time to build a nice note taking app . If we are talking something more difficult - it will be years - or you will nee…
Can you expand on this? You definitely don’t need 6 months for a note taking app to be useable it is more you need to compete with the state of the art right
> Can you expand on this?
sure. does your note taking app supports formatting? you don't need it today. you will need it at some point. images? same.
does it handle file corruption etc? no? then its pretty much useless.
does it work across devices? in modern world, again, it is pretty much useless without it
it works across devices? then it needs hosting. if it is hosted it needs auth, it needs backups
you can go on for ever.
the bar for very minimal note taking app that you actually will use is very high, with other software it is even higher.
and this is not even state of art, this is must haves
Re: The 100 hour gap between a vibecoded prototype and a working product
#34I came across the following yesterday: "The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences," a famous Zen teaching from the Hsin Hsin Ming by Sengstan
As we move from tailors to big box stores I think we have to get used to getting what we get, rather than feeling we can nitpick every single detail.
I'd also be more interested in how his 3rd, 4th or 5th vibe coded app goes.
Re: The 100 hour gap between a vibecoded prototype and a working product
#35[flagged]
Re: The 100 hour gap between a vibecoded prototype and a working product
#36With sufficiently advanced vibe coding the need for certain type of product just vanishes. I needed it, I quickly build it myself for myself, and for myself only.
This is a pipe dream and “sufficiently advanced” is doing a lot of heavy lifting. You really think people would rather spin up and debug their own self-made software rather than pay for something that has been tested, debugged, and proven by thousands of users? Why would anyone do that for anything more than a very simple script? It makes zero sense unless the LLM outputs literally perfect one-shot software reliably.
It makes sense if you want bespoke software to do a specific job in a way best suited to your workflow.
Could you do the same in eg. Photoshop? Maybe, but even if, you would need to learn how.
Re: The 100 hour gap between a vibecoded prototype and a working product
#37I have not been coding for a few years now. I was wondering if vibe coding could unstick some of my ideas. Here is my question, can I use TDD to write tests to specify what I want and then get the llm to write code to pass those tests?
Re: The 100 hour gap between a vibecoded prototype and a working product
#38I have not been coding for a few years now. I was wondering if vibe coding could unstick some of my ideas. Here is my question, can I use TDD to write tests to specify what I want and then get the llm to write code to pass those tests?
Yes
Re: The 100 hour gap between a vibecoded prototype and a working product
#39this is why i use ai just for one file at the time, as extension of my own programming. not so fast, but keeps control
Re: The 100 hour gap between a vibecoded prototype and a working product
#40With sufficiently advanced vibe coding the need for certain type of product just vanishes. I needed it, I quickly build it myself for myself, and for myself only.
I built a jira with attachments and all sorts of bells and whistles. Purrs like a kitten. Saas are going extinct. At least the jobs that charged $1000 a day to write jira plugins.
jira is a perfect example of an abysmal product that was marketed well.