Posted by kiwieater 12 hours ago
I’m working on project - a password manager, where I have full end to end test harnesses - cli client makes changes, sync them to the server and then observe the data in iOS app running in the emulator. More than once I noticed codex just hard coded expected values from the test harnesses directly into UI layout in iOS app to make the test pass…
Similar issues in the crypto layer - tests were written first , then code was written . During the review I noticed that the code was made to just pass the test - the logic was to check if signature values exists instead of checking if crypto signature is valid.
LLM can help with code reviews as well, but it has to be guided specifically what to look for for. This is with codex 5.4 model
I would find it a bit tricky to write a full test suite for a product without any code though. You'd need to understand the architecture a bit and likely end up assuming, or mocking, what helpers, classes, config, etc will be built.
Before LLMs the slow part was writing code. Now the slow part is validating whether the generated code is actually correct.
those are not copies, they aren't even features. usually part of a tiny feature that barely works only in demo.
with all vibe coding in the world today you still need at least 6 months full time to build a nice note taking app.
If we are talking something more difficult - it will be years - or you will need a team and it will still take a long time.
Everything less will result in an unusable product that works only for demo and has 80% churn.
It depends entirely on what you want. You can literally code a JavaScript 1-liner that will make a <textarea> then put the content back in the URL and it will work serverless on pretty much any platform with a Web browser.
You can also write a note taking app that will be federated yet private, that will have its own scripting language, etc. I mean you can yak-shave your way to write your own OS or even designing your own CPU for that.
So... I'm not sure that metric, time, means much without a proper context, including who does it. It's quite different if to do that, regardless of the tooling used, if you are a professional developer, designer, fullstack dev, prototypist, PM, marketer, writer, etc.
sure. does your note taking app supports formatting? you don't need it today. you will need it at some point. images? same.
does it handle file corruption etc? no? then its pretty much useless.
does it work across devices? in modern world, again, it is pretty much useless without it
it works across devices? then it needs hosting. if it is hosted it needs auth, it needs backups
you can go on for ever.
the bar for very minimal note taking app that you actually will use is very high, with other software it is even higher.
and this is not even state of art, this is must haves
And even so if your starting a note taking app most of those problems like file corruption and image support are largely solved problems. There is also the benefit of being able to reference tons of open source implementations.
I think one month to notion like app that is prod ready if you just need Auth + markdown + images + standard text editing
Bad example, note apps loaded with features are anti-productive and are for people who treat note taking as a hobby itself.
You have Obsidian anyway if you want something open source to work with.
When everyone is able to make their own one off prototype in 30 minutes, no one will pay for the thing that took someone 6 months.
there is very very rare use case when diy makes sense. in 99% of cases its just a toy that feels nice as you kinda did it. but if you factor in the time etc it is always costs 100x more than $5/month you could usually buy
In late 2024 it might have taken 6 months. Today, two weeks, maybe 3.
The interesting shift seems to be that building the first version is no longer the bottleneck — distribution, UX polish and reliability are.
There are plenty of ways to code and use code, which-ever works for you is good just improve on it and make it more effective. I have multiple screens on my computer, i don't like jumping back and fourth opening tabs and browsers so i have my set up the best way that works for me. As for the AI models, they are not going to be that helpful to you if you don't understand why its doing what its doing in a particular function or crate (in case of rust) or library. I imagine the the over the top coder that has years of experience and multiple knowledge in various languages and depth knowledge in libraries, using the same technique he can replace a whole Department by himself technically.
The only thing he needed to code was an NFT wrapper, which presumably is just forking an existing NFT wholesale.
The interesting, user-facing part of the project isn't code at all! It's just an HTML front end on someone else's image generator and a "pay me" button.
Very disappointing.