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Domain expertise has always been the real moat

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Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat

#281

Post by trojans1290 »

jaggederest wrote: post #64
azuanrb wrote: post #47

I recently reviewed an app built mostly with vibe coding. The owner said it was almost ready to launch and just needed a quick check. After looking through it, the database design was a mess. Some features worked, some didn’t. I explained the missing pieces and why things were breaking. Like OP said, he’s the domain expert. I used billions of tokens last month alone. The tools are getting better fast. But giving AI t…

Where I am headed, I think, is to basically be a platform engineer. The job is to create the guardrails, validation, prompt library, and both agent and manual reviews; that keeps the domain experts safe when they start using coding agents. It's a little bit like being T2/T3 customer support [or support engineer], but internal. You're there to catch the dangerous spots, the weird edge cases, and to make sure that ever…

Can you elaborate more on this type of role? Stack? Etc.

Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat

#282

Post by necovek »

JodieBenitez wrote: post #270
simonw wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a really good engineer - the kind of engineer you can assign a feature to and they promptly turn around a robust, maintainable, secure and well documented implementation.

hey... claudex helps me being that.

So does your IDE, your choice of programming language, your OS even — but does it define you/make you a good software engineer?

Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat

#283

Post by emodendroket »

esikich wrote: post #51
johnfn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a charitable interpretation is that from the perspective of AI, some domains are shallow (like chess), and some are deep (you can fill in the blank here).

What would fill in the blank be? Because this was actually kind of a test for me to address the question of "does AI just amplify domain knowledge?" In this case, it seems it didn't.

Things in the real world that aren't highly constrained games probably.

Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat

#284

Post by apsurd »

ElProlactin wrote: post #273
simonw wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are tech-savvy non-developers who are actually building and shipping stuff with AI I absolutely believe that. I think those are people with "software brain" who are on their way to becoming real developers. By the point they can write apps that are secure and scale... they'll have learned enough about software development to be employable as software developers. They'll be part of a new breed of developer who…

> I absolutely believe that. I think those are people with "software brain" who are on their way to becoming real developers. In my opinion, this is a software developer-centric way of thinking that reminds me of the saying, "if all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail." Here's an alternative perspective: For billions of people, technology products are an integral part of daily life. As a result, lots of people…

Another angle to refute this take: my experience is software developers themselves arent good at building software products. Its been historically necessary but not sufficient to have to understand the underlying tech. Even if AI makes that no longer necessary, it doesn’t magically make people good at building useful and usable things.

Being in the weeds of the trade expands the lens of capabilities so I’d give the upper hand to someone more deeply aware of the tech vs not. even though that in itself is still not sufficient.

Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat

#286

Post by prosunpraiser »

I have never yet had a set of words that I have grown to hate so much - “taste” and “moat” being at the top of them. It is almost always coming from people who have or know about neither.

(Agree with the article’s general sentiment - but just wanted to make this tangential comment)

Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat

#287

Post by ElProlactin »

emodendroket wrote: post #278
ElProlactin wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I absolutely believe that. I think those are people with "software brain" who are on their way to becoming real developers. In my opinion, this is a software developer-centric way of thinking that reminds me of the saying, "if all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail." Here's an alternative perspective: For billions of people, technology products are an integral part of daily life. As a result, lots of people…

Maybe the tools are going to get to a point where this isn't true but today even with Claude Code at whatever at hand you're going to have to learn enough about software to basically be a developer in the traditional sense to deliver a multi-tenant application that has to deal with high TPS or whatever. At least at present you're positing there's no need for carpenters because the home gamer can knock together a tabl…

> ...to deliver a multi-tenant application that has to deal with high TPS or whatever.

There's a whole world of opportunity that lives below complex multi-tenant applications that have to deal with high TPS.

> At least at present you're positing there's no need for carpenters because the home gamer can knock together a table or birdhouse at home.

This is an extreme, straw man argument. And here's the thing: I don't know a home gamer who framed a house. But I do know tech-savvy people who have used AI to build web apps that they have launched and been able to get customers to pay for.

Not every tech-savvy person has the ability to do this but the whole "you can't do that if you're not a software developer" argument looks to me like a denial mechanism more than a reflection of reality. People are doing it because the AI tools have advanced to the point where they can.

Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat

#288

Post by emodendroket »

ElProlactin wrote: post #287
emodendroket wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the tools are going to get to a point where this isn't true but today even with Claude Code at whatever at hand you're going to have to learn enough about software to basically be a developer in the traditional sense to deliver a multi-tenant application that has to deal with high TPS or whatever. At least at present you're positing there's no need for carpenters because the home gamer can knock together a tabl…

> ...to deliver a multi-tenant application that has to deal with high TPS or whatever. There's a whole world of opportunity that lives below complex multi-tenant applications that have to deal with high TPS. > At least at present you're positing there's no need for carpenters because the home gamer can knock together a table or birdhouse at home. This is an extreme, straw man argument. And here's the thing: I don't k…

Why is anyone paying for these apps if any idiot can do it with a few prompts?

Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat

#289

Post by simonw »

fragmede wrote: post #280
simonw wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are tech-savvy non-developers who are actually building and shipping stuff with AI I absolutely believe that. I think those are people with "software brain" who are on their way to becoming real developers. By the point they can write apps that are secure and scale... they'll have learned enough about software development to be employable as software developers. They'll be part of a new breed of developer who…

Nevermind syntax, what's a variable? function? class? What's the difference between int/float/boolean string? Nevermind more advanced concepts like O(1) vs O(n). But when the vibe coder just needs to prompt "the page loads really slowly. plz fix" and the LLM can go in, add an index to the right SQL table, add a limit and pagination, so what if I can tell you the difference between PostgreSQL's dialect of SQL vs MySQL…

It only takes two or three unreviewed prompts like "the page loads slow, plz fix" for you to end up with a tangled mess that even the agents can't productively work with.

Take a look at the Reddit forums for vibe-coders - now that a bunch of them have been hacking on things for 3+ months there's a growing awareness there that you hit a wall. Here's the first post I found from just searching "reddit vibe coding wall", it's a great illustration of the genre: https://www.reddit.com/r/vibecoding/comments/1sabdw3/anyone_...

Software development is really, really hard. Coding agents can get you a surprisingly long way, but if you want to build real software for real people you quickly find that you DO need that domain expertise.

The agents may type all of the code for you now, but you need a huge amount of skill to clearly tell them what to do, confidently decide what to do next and credibly present software that works for other people to use.

Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat

#290

Post by apsurd »

fragmede wrote: post #280
simonw wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are tech-savvy non-developers who are actually building and shipping stuff with AI I absolutely believe that. I think those are people with "software brain" who are on their way to becoming real developers. By the point they can write apps that are secure and scale... they'll have learned enough about software development to be employable as software developers. They'll be part of a new breed of developer who…

Nevermind syntax, what's a variable? function? class? What's the difference between int/float/boolean string? Nevermind more advanced concepts like O(1) vs O(n). But when the vibe coder just needs to prompt "the page loads really slowly. plz fix" and the LLM can go in, add an index to the right SQL table, add a limit and pagination, so what if I can tell you the difference between PostgreSQL's dialect of SQL vs MySQL…

Im not understanding why the discounting of your prior knowledge somehow slides over to a benefit for the non-technical vibe coder?

wouldnt you still be in a better position when prompting “site slow, make fast”?

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