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Fuck it, make it anyway

joelotter.com

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201–210 of 613 posts

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#201

Post by maplethorpe »

DidntUseIt wrote: post #92

Problem is without LLMs I’m making a contact lead form with some basic stuff and calling it good. With them, I’m making the whole SaaS. I just made the best DM experience last night. I never would have before. Feels and looks just like iMessage, because the users are coming from that, and it’s just for a small biz. It’s been planned for a while because the messages involve so much file sharing, it was time to build a…

You could do this before AI, though. Just download a big repo off github and build the binaries yourself. Or is that not enough obfuscation to convince yourself you made it?

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#202

Post by marginalia_nu »

amelius wrote: post #98
DidntUseIt wrote: post #92

Problem is without LLMs I’m making a contact lead form with some basic stuff and calling it good. With them, I’m making the whole SaaS. I just made the best DM experience last night. I never would have before. Feels and looks just like iMessage, because the users are coming from that, and it’s just for a small biz. It’s been planned for a while because the messages involve so much file sharing, it was time to build a…

Who needs a SaaS when you can just ask AI to write a private one just made for you?

Most larger businesses are kinda resistant to building stuff in house since it means that stuff has to be owned and maintained for as long as its needed (possibly decades) and you can't just rely on a SLA and the legal team to ensure things are working in perpetuity.

The danger of vibe coded SaaS:es isn't the customer building the thing themselves, but that the increased competition drives down the profit margin.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#203

Post by joeguilmette »

DidntUseIt wrote: post #186
embedding-shape wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so without LLMs you’re now doing only beginner stuff. You won’t seem like a real dev anymore. I think it's the opposite. When I'm on the edges of Real Difficult Stuff (TM), then LLMs are less of help compared to when I just need basic web applications or similar "beginner stuff". If what you're working on doesn't exists in the training data at all, the LLMs can sometimes be more in the way than helpful, as they don…

Think we’re saying the same thing. I very actively work using LLMs (no “agentic” stuff) and agree with you - they are only really worth tasking out tedium to. But a lot of - say a DM feature - is tedium. Something simple like adding reactions, adding read receipts. It’s not hard at all. The LLM easily excels at the task and yet I didn’t have to do it. There are 1000s of those tasks. Handling file uploads, filling out…

what business are you in?

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#204

Post by bakugo »

codazoda wrote: post #177
goonersallofyou wrote: post #53

> the output doesn’t feel like mine, and I take no pride in what it produces. So much this. I don't understand how some people seem to have no self awareness or shame in saying "I build X" where "X" was entirely prompted by an LLM. It's like ordering a meal from door dash and calling yourself a chef.

That is almost to say that the only part of the project that matters is the code. But the code is only a tiny part. I take joy in describing the thing and bringing that vision to life.

"That is almost to say that the only part of the meal that matters is the cooking. But the cooking is only a tiny part. I take joy in describing the food I want and bringing that vision to life."

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#205

Post by ricardobayes »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #140
MachineMan wrote: post #10

In general creators must do some honest introspection. Did you enjoy the crafts, or did you enjoy the compliments? Did you enjoy the difficult puzzles or the identity derived from a career that gives you the reputation and perceived value of someone who can do a thing most people can’t? Did you enjoy the code itself or the accomplishment of seeing your ideas brought to life? Who remains when the thing you do no longe…

A CNC machine will beat a whittler every time. If a craft is only about technical execution, AI is going to own it. The crafts that are safe are the ones that elicit/depend upon a complex human response that's not easily predictable from its parts.

Looks like teaching is about to become the "it" profession and might become insanely competitive.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#206

Post by aeon_ai »

x3haloed wrote: post #164

This is 80% ego talking and 20% fear of change. The comment about hobby vs. work is correct, and it’s the crux of this. OP is attempting to console themselves. “I shouldn’t have to change to avoid ‘falling behind.’ I like how I’m doing it. I’m good at what I do.” The fact of the matter is the LLMs can be used to produce effective work faster than you. Yes. You are falling behind. And yes, it will reduce your value in…

You're going to probably be downvoted because the truth is hard and the collective human ego is self-reinforcing, but I think you are correct.

'Quality' is a function of filling in the gaps of the new tools, not eschewing them entirely.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#207

Post by srcreigh »

jenniferhooley wrote: post #189
wyantb wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"not everybody" vs "50 year old business guys...months of focused chats" - I don't think you're really disagreeing here? That's also a niche population. One that knows their domain very well, absolutely, personally I think it's cool that they can DIY what they need. But still a niche population. That's not your proverbial 20year old kid right out of school with ADHD pumping out world class software. Aside - is AI sti…

No they don't know the domain at all. I think one of the startups brings in around $10K a month now. They know nothing about the domain only that it brings in money (i.e. they run thousands of startup "tests" and this one seemed to be easiest to make money from), and even less about code (have no idea what a variable is). I just think devs are coping by thinking that saas startups have any barrier to entry at all. Yo…

Yeah. This makes sense. Someone who can dedicate a lot of time to scaling a SaaS serving many customers are helped a lot by AI. I believe busy professionals who already have successful businesses won't have the focus to build a one-off solution for their own needs a lot of the time.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#208

Post by DidntUseIt »

coldtea wrote: post #121
DidntUseIt wrote: post #92

Problem is without LLMs I’m making a contact lead form with some basic stuff and calling it good. With them, I’m making the whole SaaS. I just made the best DM experience last night. I never would have before. Feels and looks just like iMessage, because the users are coming from that, and it’s just for a small biz. It’s been planned for a while because the messages involve so much file sharing, it was time to build a…

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Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#209

Post by hgoel »

MachineMan wrote: post #10

In general creators must do some honest introspection. Did you enjoy the crafts, or did you enjoy the compliments? Did you enjoy the difficult puzzles or the identity derived from a career that gives you the reputation and perceived value of someone who can do a thing most people can’t? Did you enjoy the code itself or the accomplishment of seeing your ideas brought to life? Who remains when the thing you do no longe…

I don't get it, you guys speak as if you have infinite time and no goals besides just the act of writing code, with no consideration about what the code you're writing is supposed to do. As if you'd be happy to just write anything as long as you were allowed to manually type everything out.

On top of that there's the "did you enjoy the craft or did you enjoy the compliments" framing. Are people who use pre-existing libraries just fishing for compliments too? No, of course not, they're making a cost-benefit analysis and deciding that certain tasks are better off delegated rather than repeated by hand. Same goes for choosing when to use AI. Not everything in every project justifies full human effort, regardless of how much those humans enjoy their craft.

Many of the other replies have referenced the arts, but I think a better example would be research. Scientists have constantly been in a position where improvements in technology shift the nature of their work without being able to change what they fundamentally do.

They might enjoy the art of manually calibrating an instrument to extreme precision, but ultimately their craft is to do research. If the auto-calibration is going to be sufficient for their experiment's needs, there's no reason to waste time doing a manual calibration. Yet, not requiring extreme precision does not mean the experiment's results have no scientific value, nor does it reflect on their dedication towards their craft.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#210

Post by ryandrake »

cmiles74 wrote: post #145
iamcalledrob wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I think a lot of the enjoyment comes from learning to overcome challenges. Jumping in to an unfamiliar problem space, sucking at it, then grinding until it all clicks. Generative AI takes away the grind, which takes away the learning. How do I master a new language if I'm expected to code via an LLM from day 1? It's also well understood that the act of writing is when thinking actually happens. You have n…

Agreed, there may be people working with their LLM tool to learn something new. In my experience this isn’t the way these tools are marketed, from where I sit it looks like this is being discouraged. If you aren’t really learning anything then all you get at the end is the product. For a certain type of person this is just not enough. I bet people generated solutions end up significantly different from AI generated s…

Someone on Twitter put it well: using an LLM to learn is like using a forklift to lift weights in the gym. Yes, action is happening but the point of going to the gym is not to ensure weights get displaced up and down.
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