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Why AI Sucks at Front End

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Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#171
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to interpret comments like this because we all have different standards and use cases. So it would really help if you could link to it. Even in a roundabout way if you want to avoid the impression of self-promotion.

I built a few websites, most of them it wouldn’t be wise to place on here. But someone emailed me about this, so I’ll do my best to help I did build https://hartwork.life for a friend with a design from open ai (pre google stitch which is my current preferred tool) Here is the line from my Claude code to get something like this. Keep in mind I didnt use mcp for playwright with this particular implementation but it is…

Thanks. I would say yeah, it's not too bad, but it is also a pretty simple site.

There are some interesting issues that probably relate to your workflow, like the nav links are different sizes, the icons too. And the resolution of some of the images/icons on a MacBook is poor. But I suspect that's because a simple ImageMagick raster diff will fuzz over those kind of differences.

I wonder if you can make some tweaks or find a better representation than pure raster screenshots to fix this. Can't really deal in vector images because AI sucks at outputting those, and you can't print a web page to SVG.

There was a super niche website framework that only used SVG a while ago. Would be funny if that kind of thing makes a takes off just so AI can do better.

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#172
post #6

If you are really good at something, you'll find AI sucks at everything.

No you don't understand, AI is VERY BAD at front-end and CSS to the point you cannot use anything. It's not passable even slightly. Everybody with experience knows that FE has always been "harder" than BE - but BE the stakes are higher since it's the business. FE is often "just UI" and despite that being very important too, you can throw it away and start over a lot easier with a UI than you can with a BE platform. I…

You overestimate how good the average front-end developer PR is that gets merged.

My experience developing on a fairly standard SAAS is that AI (Figma, Claude) has produced UIs which look better, are more accessible, and get through review and QA and product approval, faster and more reliably than any of the FE developers I've worked with recently can.

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#173
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to interpret comments like this because we all have different standards and use cases. So it would really help if you could link to it. Even in a roundabout way if you want to avoid the impression of self-promotion.

I built a few websites, most of them it wouldn’t be wise to place on here. But someone emailed me about this, so I’ll do my best to help I did build https://hartwork.life for a friend with a design from open ai (pre google stitch which is my current preferred tool) Here is the line from my Claude code to get something like this. Keep in mind I didnt use mcp for playwright with this particular implementation but it is…

Some feedback:

1. The main page asks for an email to be notified when the hoodie is available to buy, but I can add the goodie to my shopping cart and proceed to check out 2. The product page mentions a 6’ model but there is no model in the images 3. The check out page says “there are no payment options, please contact us”

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#174
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I built a few websites, most of them it wouldn’t be wise to place on here. But someone emailed me about this, so I’ll do my best to help I did build https://hartwork.life for a friend with a design from open ai (pre google stitch which is my current preferred tool) Here is the line from my Claude code to get something like this. Keep in mind I didnt use mcp for playwright with this particular implementation but it is…

Some feedback: 1. The main page asks for an email to be notified when the hoodie is available to buy, but I can add the goodie to my shopping cart and proceed to check out 2. The product page mentions a 6’ model but there is no model in the images 3. The check out page says “there are no payment options, please contact us”

Thank you for the feedback. The store isn’t done waiting on the friend for actual products with their images etc.

If you really want to see what I was messing with email me. I’ll share on non public forums.

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#175
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I built a few websites, most of them it wouldn’t be wise to place on here. But someone emailed me about this, so I’ll do my best to help I did build https://hartwork.life for a friend with a design from open ai (pre google stitch which is my current preferred tool) Here is the line from my Claude code to get something like this. Keep in mind I didnt use mcp for playwright with this particular implementation but it is…

Thanks. I would say yeah, it's not too bad, but it is also a pretty simple site. There are some interesting issues that probably relate to your workflow, like the nav links are different sizes, the icons too. And the resolution of some of the images/icons on a MacBook is poor. But I suspect that's because a simple ImageMagick raster diff will fuzz over those kind of differences. I wonder if you can make some tweaks o…

Oh yeah the natural images are also low quality. Email me I’ll share with you something else I built

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs are just replacing consultants as the #1 generator of sloppy code.

> LLMs are just replacing consultants as the #1 generator of sloppy code. The "consultants wrote sloppy code" is one of those memes that never die. The only thing that differentiates consultants from you is the contract type. All broad strokes accusations are just a consequence of in-house employees feeling threatened by their presence and having a vested interest in portraying themselves as infinitely better than an…

> The "consultants wrote sloppy code" is one of those memes that never die.

Your comment is one of those that feel intuitively right, because what you say makes sense... until faced with reality.

Most consultants that most permanent employees are likely to find are those that will do a crappy job, then be gone when shit hits the fan. Source: anyone who's ever worked with them, myself included. Actually, both sides of the desk. They tend to do crappy jobs because those are the incentives they have.

You can argue till you're blue in the face, but your theory cannot push aside the actual experience of many if not most of us.

Of course, the occasional scenarios where the consultants are solid and doing top-notch work exist, but what matters is the majority of what happens... and it's not good.

So the meme won't die, because it reflects reality.

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#177
I have found that working with llms for frontend to be better than most of the developers I have worked with. A majority of devs I came across only had enough frontend knowledge to be dangerous and to consistently introduce frontend entropy.

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LLMs are just replacing consultants as the #1 generator of sloppy code. The "consultants wrote sloppy code" is one of those memes that never die. The only thing that differentiates consultants from you is the contract type. All broad strokes accusations are just a consequence of in-house employees feeling threatened by their presence and having a vested interest in portraying themselves as infinitely better than an…

No, it’s mainly because consulting firms love running their bait-and-switch scam and use their junior consultants to do the actual work while the seniors move on to butter up the next sucker.

One of the interviews I had straight out of university was a firm that asked if I was willing to lie about my work experience for Java consultancy work (Kuber Infotech).
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