So the keynote mentions that in a perspective you are going to be a "maker of things" rather than a coder. But, nobody is asking, in a perspective, why would anybody use the stuff you "make" rather than using AI directly? All of the notion of apps disappears, in a perspective.
Do you change the oil on your car yourself? No? Why not? Buying the oil, filters and all the tools you need to do it forever would cost less than one oil change at the dealership. Plenty of videos on YouTube you can learn from.
Sure, but changing the oil means buying a bunch of stuff and getting dirty. Replacing your vibe coded garbage app with my vibe coded garbage app is much much easier than changing my oil.
That said, I think this only applies to apps that can be replaced by vibe coded garbage. Anything with a network effect, or anything that requires deep domain knowledge is much safer
> Replacing your vibe coded garbage app with my vibe coded garbage app is much much easier than changing my oil
I am not sure what is it about the HN crowd that makes them so out of touch with what the average Joe is capable of. It's like that Dropbox post top comment all over again.
Don't you think that the only reason you think it's simple is because you're... A professional Software Engineer??
I know for a fact that it has gotten simpler. Which means that the number of people who can do a version of the thing i’ve been doing most of my life got way way way bigger in the last couple years.
Sure, not everybody can do it - i take your point. But the dynamic between can and can’t has changed. Projects I wouldn’t take on because they were too much work for not enough reward have become something I can pop off in a couple hours. People who know nothing about coding but a lot about their specific need can build complex apps in days.
> Which means that the number of people who can do a version of the thing i’ve been doing most of my life got way way way bigger in the last couple years.
Which invariably means that businesses who incorrectly believe that their vibe coded solution will withstand the trials and tribulations of production will be needing even more professional help when it all goes wrong.
Everything old is new again.
Yes people shouldn't discuss until they have tried vibe coding as SaaS. I do this now and it is 10x faster at coding and 1x on any other tasks. So overall maybe 3 months work is done in a month. This means the typical SaaS may be cheaper now but it is not like anyone can vibe code it cheaper than the subscription fee.
> Why not?
Drain plug is in a stupid location that I don't often feel like dealing with. I do change the oil myself in all my other machines with much more pleasant for oil change designs, though. So I guess what you are saying is that AI isn't ergonomic enough yet, but will that hold true much longer?
I have been thinking quite a bit about this lately. I am in the process of building my own music software applications. This is actually allowing me to leave MacOS since Ableton was previously the anchor for me. I can now build tools that are more geared towards what I always wanted in Rust much like DHH was talking about in that talk.
I could sell some of my tools I built but I am on the fence about it. As a few others have said, there is still work and taste that goes into those tools that some might not want to put the effort into. However, there will be an increasing number of people who just build bespoke tools for themselves. That's probably ok. There's a market for both.
The most important thing now (and maybe always) is distribution. If anyone can build something then it ultimately comes down to your ability to market, build trust and provide support at 2:30 AM. That's hard to do when you're a one person shop. Software is an ongoing operational commitment if you make it your business.
Because it does take some skills, judgement, taste, knowledge, time and effort to build things. He said it is not very different from directing a team of contractors, and also said that a 10x dev in now 1000x with a tool like this. He also gave the parallel of photography to address this point, that people were forced to be more creative and adapt.
But I assume you didn't use to build anything substantial.
> it does take some skills, judgement, taste, knowledge, time and effort to build things
As of now, but we are talking in a perspective.
People are not well organised.
Business people I work with tend to have all kind of ideas in different places, I cannot count all the Trello boards they have abandoned. Users are usually lazy and don't want to fill in data properly, well yeah chatbox with llm is cool interface, but you still have to enforce structure for data so it is useful.
With AI problem is still there "garbage in, garbage out", models are not going to imagine correct data to fill in blanks, in the end if you need someones birthday, someone has to type it in.
Web app I am working on is organised only because we get engineers and quality assurance and we get paid for maintaining application. Data is structured and we can deliver insights because the application enforces structure.
There are far more requirements than AI can deliver on its own.
>and also said that a 10x dev in now 1000x with a tool like this
Yeah, I'm sure you are doing ~4 years worth of work per day. Get real Jesus Christ.
At least at the current level of AI, it still takes days/weeks/months to make a good app if you have standards. That's not effort everyone will want to do.
If/when agents become reliable enough, there will be no need for web apps, nor phone apps, etc. In fact, DHH got that part right: "your app should have a CLI if you want me to use it." If "English is the best programming language", then English is the best UX. I'm not navigating a silly page and filling out forms and dismissing popups if my agent can book a flight for me with a sentence and a bit of textual back and forth.
I wonder if the web will go away and the Internet will be just bot to bot traffic.
Navigating the web seems archaic in that context. Not only is that the end of Rails, but of frontend, JavaScript, etc. in the long term.
Geocities made everyone a webmaster, too. Remember those badass websites?
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