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Why AI Sucks at Front End

nerdy.dev

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Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#71

Post by ronbenton »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #57
ronbenton wrote: post #48

Everything is nuanced and generalizations help no one. There are absolutely frontend apps where AI straight up crushes. Sure these much be less novel apps but most of what people work on is a CRUD-esque interface.

I'm wondering what would be a specific example that AI would fail to create front-end wise, since I've been having quite good experiences with it.

The author of the post is known for some pretty fancy CSS wizardry. I’m guessing AI is not great on some very specific, advanced CSS use cases where there isn’t much prior work. But again this is an edge case compared to what the vast majority of us are doing

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#72

Post by daveguy »

azangru wrote: post #16
feverzsj wrote: post #6

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

> If you are really good at something, you'll find AI sucks at everything. Nah, just at that something :-)

I think the point is, there's always someone good at what you are evaluating. Anyone with expertise in the domain will recognize how back it sucks in any given domain.

Don't get me wrong, AI can definitely be used as a tool by someone who knows what they're doing to avoid boilerplate. But anyone using it in a domain they aren't already an expert in will unknowingly accept AI f ups.

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#73

Post by derwiki »

fny wrote: post #56

Aside from the obvious "AI can't see" criticism, AI sucks at frontend because frontend sucks. Why does frontend suck? Churn. To quote the article: 1. "It trained on ancient garbage" which is the by product of massive churn and this attitude leads to even more churn 2. "It doesn't know WHY we do things" because we don't either... even the paradigms used in frontend dev have needlessly churned My fix? I switched from R…

What about plain JS without React or another framework? I don’t do much front-end these days but I’d love to toss out as much front end-complexity as possible

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#74

Post by mewpmewp2 »

ronbenton wrote: post #71
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering what would be a specific example that AI would fail to create front-end wise, since I've been having quite good experiences with it.

The author of the post is known for some pretty fancy CSS wizardry. I’m guessing AI is not great on some very specific, advanced CSS use cases where there isn’t much prior work. But again this is an edge case compared to what the vast majority of us are doing

But even then, what is a fancy CSS wizardry that AI couldn't do for instance, but would be trivial for the author?

Or is it that AI is not as creative?

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#75

Post by enejej »

khasan222 wrote: post #36

Ngl I’m reading this article after having used ai to build a beautiful front end that is pixel perfect. Yes ai can’t see, it only understands numbers. So tell it to use image magick to compare the screenshot to the actual mockup, tell it to get less than 5% difference and don’t use more than 20% blur. Thank me later. I built a whole website in like 2 days with this technique. Everyone seems to have trouble telling ai…

What’s the point in saying you built something beautiful and not showing it?

Share it. I used Claude earlier to test out its design capabilities and what I got as output was flat and tasteless.

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#76

Post by codyswann »

bananzamba wrote: post #64
khasan222 wrote: post #36

Ngl I’m reading this article after having used ai to build a beautiful front end that is pixel perfect. Yes ai can’t see, it only understands numbers. So tell it to use image magick to compare the screenshot to the actual mockup, tell it to get less than 5% difference and don’t use more than 20% blur. Thank me later. I built a whole website in like 2 days with this technique. Everyone seems to have trouble telling ai…

The last time I tried to make AI built a drag and drop UI, it failed miserably. Things wouldn't line up or even didn't work at all. Any tips for that?

Ask it to take control of a browser using something like Playwright and use the UI itself like an end user would and evaluate whether it is a good experience.

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#79

Post by f30e3dfed1c9 »

enejej wrote: post #75
khasan222 wrote: post #36

Ngl I’m reading this article after having used ai to build a beautiful front end that is pixel perfect. Yes ai can’t see, it only understands numbers. So tell it to use image magick to compare the screenshot to the actual mockup, tell it to get less than 5% difference and don’t use more than 20% blur. Thank me later. I built a whole website in like 2 days with this technique. Everyone seems to have trouble telling ai…

What’s the point in saying you built something beautiful and not showing it? Share it. I used Claude earlier to test out its design capabilities and what I got as output was flat and tasteless.

Software developers have been calling their stuff "beautiful" for years now. It's bullshit. Almost none of it is beautiful. They just mean it looks like whatever is trendy at the time.

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#80

Post by totalwebtool »

faangguyindia wrote: post #24

Ai ain't gonna perform at level of top front end designer but you will get you halfway at significantly less cost.

Exactly, it will do a decent job with designs using an established component library or design system. For most/many sites and web apps it will be better and faster than trying to design from scratch. There will continue to be a place for highly custom, unique designs but most smaller sites don't need to start there.
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