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So where are all the AI apps?

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Re: So where are all the AI apps?

#361

Post by skydhash »

ramesh31 wrote: post #259
skydhash wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High quality assets is orthogonal to fun. If you can create a fun concept with generic assets, I believe you may find an artist willing to produce the assets for you.

>High quality assets is orthogonal to fun. Not necessarily. It's a very "programmer brain" thing to think that novel mechanics are the be-all end-all of what makes a fun game. Extremely simple games can become incredibly engaging given high quality detailed beautiful art design. Think of deck builders and board games that would be pointless with just placeholder images and spreadsheets of data, that actually become e…

Not what I was saying. You can focus on assets once you nailed down the game design aspects. You can have beautiful assets and a bad game the people do not enjoy (so many AAA flops), but they will forgive not so great assets if you have a fun game (a lot of indie game).

Re: So where are all the AI apps?

#362

Post by androiddrew »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #137
paxys wrote: post #28

It is incredibly easy now to get an idea to the prototype stage, but making it production-ready still needs boring old software engineering skills. I know countless people who followed the "I'll vibe code my own business" trend, and a few of them did get pretty far, but ultimately not a single one actually launched. Anyone who has been doing this professionally will tell you that the "last step" is what takes the maj…

> It is incredibly easy now to get an idea to the prototype stage Yup. And for most purposes, that's enough . An app does not have to be productized and shipped to general audience to be useful. In fact, if your goal is to solve some specific problem for yourself, your friends/family, community or your team, then the "last step" you mention - the one that "takes majority of time and effort" - is entirely unnecessary,…

I heard a delightful term for building apps only for yourself “houseplant programming”.

Re: So where are all the AI apps?

#363

Post by gverrilla »

I have built more than 100 different utilities over the last 3 months. I published one of them only, and plan on publishing maybe 3 or 4 in the near future. Most of them are just very specific to my workflow (quite unusual) and my current system. None went to PyPI. But a good portion of them went to github.

Re: So where are all the AI apps?

#364

Post by Kalabasa »

ballenf wrote: post #138

The thesis has it backwards. We will see fewer published/downloaded apps/packages as people rely on others less. I'm not sure we're quite there yet but I'm increasingly likely to spend a few minutes giving an LLM a chance to make a tool I need instead of sifting through sketchy and dodgy websites for some slightly obscure functionality. I use fewer ad-heavy sites that for converting a one text file format to another.…

Yep. I was looking for a tiling/scrolling window manager for MacOS. Setting it up, learning the configs, reading github issues, learning the key bindings take time. Then I gave up and it was done in 2 days with Claude Code to my preferences. No intention to polish up and publish this tool.

Re: So where are all the AI apps?

#365

Post by scrubs »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #137
paxys wrote: post #28

It is incredibly easy now to get an idea to the prototype stage, but making it production-ready still needs boring old software engineering skills. I know countless people who followed the "I'll vibe code my own business" trend, and a few of them did get pretty far, but ultimately not a single one actually launched. Anyone who has been doing this professionally will tell you that the "last step" is what takes the maj…

> It is incredibly easy now to get an idea to the prototype stage Yup. And for most purposes, that's enough . An app does not have to be productized and shipped to general audience to be useful. In fact, if your goal is to solve some specific problem for yourself, your friends/family, community or your team, then the "last step" you mention - the one that "takes majority of time and effort" - is entirely unnecessary,…

I mean how else could it be? Some app for Grampa? Junior? The scope of complexity of these problems (which build on tech the viber need not make) is small. There's no serious support dimension or risk.

The last step matters. When I'm talking about "apps" as a professional software engineer, I'm thinking about postgres, big table, ramcloud, dpdk, and applications in finance like a security master or system of record. Those apps have actual customers that for the money they pay demand something in product quality Claude can't do.

You write "products on the market are not solutions to problems." This speaks volumes and not to the good. You then add "tools to make money" which I read as "side hustle." It's has all the salience and import of a disposable tissue ... what you'd expect people to see that as? Bold leadership? C'mon, get real.

Re: So where are all the AI apps?

#366

Post by turlockmike »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #347
SgtBastard wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think 1-2, 6-8 can’t be done by agents?

1. An agent is not going to talk to the “business” and solve XYProblems, conflicting agendas, and deal with strategy. I’ve had to push back on people in my own company that want to give customers “questionnaires” to fill out pre engagement and I refuse to do it on any project I lead. An agent can tell facial expressions, uncertainty etc. 2. AI is horrible at system design. One anecdote. I was vibe coding an internal…

Every problem you described is solvable and while it may not be solved right now or even in 6 months it'll probably be solved within 18 months. It's just scaling and tuning the models

Re: So where are all the AI apps?

#367

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

turlockmike wrote: post #366
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. An agent is not going to talk to the “business” and solve XYProblems, conflicting agendas, and deal with strategy. I’ve had to push back on people in my own company that want to give customers “questionnaires” to fill out pre engagement and I refuse to do it on any project I lead. An agent can tell facial expressions, uncertainty etc. 2. AI is horrible at system design. One anecdote. I was vibe coding an internal…

Every problem you described is solvable and while it may not be solved right now or even in 6 months it'll probably be solved within 18 months. It's just scaling and tuning the models

You can’t “tune models” to get people willing to get on a zoom call with an agent and the agent asks them questions and talk through strategy and understand human emotions.

Are they also going to interact with the model for a design review session?

Tell the model where it got it wrong and the model is going to make the changes?

Re: So where are all the AI apps?

#368

Post by zeroonetwothree »

ryanbuening wrote: post #188
prhn wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even beyond the engineering there are 100 other things to do. I launched a vibe coded product a few months ago. I spent the majority of my time - making sure the copy / presentation was effective on product website - getting signing certificates (this part SUCKS and is expensive) - managing release version binaries without a CDN (stupid) - setting up LLC, website, domain, email, google search indexing, etc, etc

Agreed. However, I just recently "launched" a side project and Cloudflare made a lot of the stuff you mentioned easier. I also found that using AI helped with setting up my LLC when I had questions.

Getting legal advice from AI is certainly an option you can take.

Re: So where are all the AI apps?

#369

Post by tharkun__ »

chickensong wrote: post #337
PaulHoule wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, we traded managing files and registry entries on desktops for something that violates all the principles of the science-of-systems, the kind of thing Perrow warns about in his book Normal Accidents.

I think that's oversimplifying it a bit. Managing files and registry entries wasn't much of a problem, but supporting an ever-growing matrix of versions across multiple platforms that were released into the wild was an issue. Modern evergreen apps kind of fix this, but you're still dealing with other people's computers and environments. Operating a service reliably is of course filled with different problems, but at…

This so much. As a user, especially a private user, I want my apps I can install and run locally, no internet connection, nobody forces updates on me for an app that does exactly what I need and I'm used to it.

As a developer, SaaS all the way. I really really love not having to deal with versions, release branches galore, hotfixes on different releases and all that jazz. I'm so glad I could leave that behind and we have a single Cloud "version" i.e. whatever the latest commit on the main branch is. Sure we might be a few commits behind head in what's actually currently deployed to all the production envs but that's so much more manageable than thousands upon thousands of customers on different versions and with direct control over your database. We also have a non-SaaS version we still support and I'm so glad I don't have to deal with it any longer and someone else does. Very bad memories of customers telling you they didn't do something and when you get the logs/database excerpt (finally, after spending way too much times debugging and talking to them already) you can clearly see that they did fudge with the database ...

Re: So where are all the AI apps?

#370

Post by oblio »

l3x4ur1n wrote: post #340
TeMPOraL wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is incredibly easy now to get an idea to the prototype stage Yup. And for most purposes, that's enough . An app does not have to be productized and shipped to general audience to be useful. In fact, if your goal is to solve some specific problem for yourself, your friends/family, community or your team, then the "last step" you mention - the one that "takes majority of time and effort" - is entirely unnecessary,…

I agree with you. I am personally building small tools and apps to solve my own problems and I would not do that before AI - I would not know how.

Would you pay $1000 per month for that?
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