This is what I've been doing for a couple years now: having AI help to code/test projects that I've had in my long TODO list but would never realistically started/completed. AI is now pretty capable of producing decent code if your specifications are decent.
I still think that non-programmers are going to have a tough time with vibe coding. Nuances and nomenclature in the language you are targeting and programming design principles in general help in actually getting AI to build something useful.
A simple example is knowing to tell AI that a window should be 'modal' or that null values should default to xyz.
I completed three "micro apps" solely for myself (well, one for my wife and I) over the last month, all vibe coded. I sent two of them (sort of micro mindfulness tools) to a therapist friend. "WOW, I didn't know you could do all that!"
What I told her was, I, in fact, could not do all that. I'm a marketer who's been in software companies for 15 years. Zero coding ability. However, through repeated exposure to programmers, PMs, and designers - and because a major part of my role is to develop a nuanced understanding of how our products create value for users - I've learned how to think like a product designer and developer (albeit to a non-professional degree).
That's the part of the "anyone can now build software" sentiments that seems to be skipped over. Anyone can now have their ideas coded for them, but that doesn't automatically create the ability to make all the right decisions during the design and build process. It doesn't create thoughtfulness and consideration and the willingness to say "no" to a feature because, while it seems cool, it will detract from the core purpose of the overall tool.
I've a similar history of AI use as you but every so often I simply describe what I want and try out what it creates. Honestly in these past 2 years the pace of improvement has been stunning.
Yesterday I was inside one of the tools that a just build it prompt created and I asked it to use a NewType pattern for some of the internals.
It wasn't until I was in bed that I thought why? If I'm never reading that code and the agent doesn't benefit from it? Why am I dragging my cognitive baggage into the code base?
Would a future lay vibe coder care what a New type pattern is? Why it helps? Who it helps?
I think the pedagogy of programming will change so that effective prompting will be more accessible.
I do think about this a lot. On the one hand, you might be right, and it may not matter at all. On the other, we often do that kind of stuff because it makes it harder to slip up by accident and/or makes the code easier to read and understand. These things are surely helpful to AI agents in the same way that they are useful to people?
I guess it depends on whether the extra time you could invest in that kind of thing pays back in terms of context windows, code quality or speed of AI code generation.
"Ok, here's a static bar on the top of the page" as it disappears as you scroll. You can now no longer click anything else on the page. You said "can't click away" and it did show up on top. As a 30 year coder that never did any UI, this is this shit I run into constantly. I can create awesomely cool and fast back end stuff, and can create better UIs than I've ever been able to, but not knowing the nomenclature trips me up constantly.
It's a massive accelerator for my dumb and small hobby projects. If they take to long I tend to give up and do something else.
Recently I designed and 3d printed a case for a raspberry pi, some encoders and buttons, a touchscreen, just to contol a 500 EUR audio effects paddel (eventide H9)
They official android app was over if the worst apps I ever used. They even blocked paste in the login screen...
Few people have this fx box, and even fewer would need my custom controller for it., build it for an audience of one. But thanks to llms it was not that big of a deal. It allowed me to concentrate on what was fun.
I've been doing this too and it's genuinely changed how I think about side projects. used to be I'd plan for weeks then abandon after hitting some annoying plumbing work - auth, deployment, whatever. now I just describe what I want and iterate. finished more projects in the last 3 months than the previous 2 years.
but there's a weird thing that happens when you build for yourself and don't read the code carefully. I caught one of my little internal tools storing API keys in localStorage because that's what the LLM decided to do and I never questioned it. for a personal tool running locally it probably didn't matter much but it made me think about what else I'm not catching. the whole "audience of one" framing kind of implies you can skip the boring review parts but idk, some of those boring parts exist for reasons even when nobody else will use it. I still vibe code everything now but I've gotten way more paranoid about actually reading what gets generated, at least the parts that touch anything sensitive
in the age of LLM-built side projects... what's the right venue for sharing these things with other people?
i feel like the expectations for a "Show HN" project are too high for a passing around a silly little toy that I had the robot throw together. product hunt is for things that are actual products/businesses. so maybe you throw it in a targetted subreddit for a niche interest group?
seems like there should be a marketplace for silly little side-projects, but i'm not sure how you keep it from getting overrun
Once a month HN user david927 does a "What are you working on?" post (among others: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22What%20are%20you%20working%...) that is perfect for you to drop things like this into as a comment. It looks like this month's is still open for comments though unlikely to generate much interest after the first few days.
It should be made an official HN tradition like whoishiring.
I think the problem with such places is, they just become a dump for self-promotion by people who otherwise don't participate at all. The opposite of an actual community. That's why even reddit used to have a 10-to-1 rule of thumb about posts like that (which would be very easily gamed today).
No login or signup is required so it's very easy to try out and quite fun to play with, which probably helped. I think the time people are willing to invest in something before getting some sort of reward is approaching sub-second territory.
In theory, you write/vlog about the human side of making it, or lessons learned, or something else that people will find value in related to the thing you make. Over time, maybe a few people start to care.
Ironically, if people care about you, you can pretty much serve up hot buttered shit and get traction.
I’m in agreement with the blog post. I’ve been treating AI more like a tool and less like a science experiment and I’ve gotten some good results when working on my various side projects. In the past much of my time was taken up by research and learning the various little parts of how everything works. What starts as a little python project to play around with APIs ends with me spending 5 hours learning tkinter and barely making any API calls.
LLMs have finally freed me from the shackles of yak shaving. Some dumb inconsequential tooling thing doesn't work? Agent will take care of it in a background session and I can get back to building things I do care about.
I'm finding that in several kinds of projects ranging from spare-time amusements to serious work, LLMs have become useful to me by (1) engaging me in a conversation that elicits thoughts and ideas from me more quickly than I come up with them without the conversation, and (2) pointing me at where I can get answers to technical questions so that I get the research part of my work done more quickly.
Talking with other knowledgeable humans works just as well for the first thing, but suitable other humans are not as readily available all the time as an LLM, and suitably-chosen LLMs do a pretty good job of engaging whatever part of my brain or personality it is that is stimulated through conversation to think inventively.
For the second thing, LLMs can just answer most of the questions I ask, but I don't trust their answers for reasons that we all know very well, so instead I ask them to point me at technical sources as well, and that often gets me information more quickly than I would have by just starting from a relatively uninformed google search (though Google is getting better at doing the same job, too).
I feel like the coding assistants are opening doors for hobbyists the same way 3d printing did. If you’re into a hobby with physical components like rc-anything, robotics, or just need a one off part to fix something a 3D printer is a game changer. In the same way, if you’re into writing software for personal projects or just filling a discreet need ClaudeCode is a game changer.
>The age of actually finishing side projects is here
This is a really good summary of how I've experienced AI put into words. I'm not really sure how this can be monetized though.
I'm not going to burn $200-1k per day on agents to do some side projects that have been on the back burner. The only reason I'm doing it now is the heavily subsidized or free available models all over the place.
I have more than a few side projects that began as late night discussions with an llm. A couple of those projects reached a level of completion where I use the products daily, and one project reached production (a game you can find referenced on my profile).
I have had similar experiences to the author, and I’ve found that just working with a single agent in Antigravity (on the Gemini Pro subscription) is adequate. The extra perceived speed and power of multiple agents and/or Claude Code really didn’t match the output.
With a single Gemini (or sometimes switching to Claude Opus which inexplicably Google provides a generous amount of for free via AG) gives me incremental results so fast that I spend most of my time thinking about what I want (answering unplanned product questions or deciding how to handle edge cases).
I’m fact, sometimes I just get exhausted with so much decision making. However, that’s what it takes to build something useful; we just aren’t accustomed to iterating so fast!
I wasn't aware that Antigravity personal provides free access to Opus/Sonnet! Maybe this is just for limited time, but certainly to be taken advantage of! Thanks!
> I don't think we'll ever manually write code again. It's just so much faster.
If velocity was the most important criteria, well, we could always write tech-debt faster, we just chose not to.
Unless the LLM/agent is carefully curated, it will produce tech-debt faster than it can fix it.
For some products, it seems not a problem - you just want to validate PMF on a product (of course you'll have a new problem now, which is that everyone with $20 to spare can do the same).
For others, a longer-life product is preferable. We shall have to see how things shake out. My best guess would be that we have more useless stuff that is free or close to free, and fewer useful stuff that is free or close to free.
Readit News
I still think that non-programmers are going to have a tough time with vibe coding. Nuances and nomenclature in the language you are targeting and programming design principles in general help in actually getting AI to build something useful.
A simple example is knowing to tell AI that a window should be 'modal' or that null values should default to xyz.
What I told her was, I, in fact, could not do all that. I'm a marketer who's been in software companies for 15 years. Zero coding ability. However, through repeated exposure to programmers, PMs, and designers - and because a major part of my role is to develop a nuanced understanding of how our products create value for users - I've learned how to think like a product designer and developer (albeit to a non-professional degree).
That's the part of the "anyone can now build software" sentiments that seems to be skipped over. Anyone can now have their ideas coded for them, but that doesn't automatically create the ability to make all the right decisions during the design and build process. It doesn't create thoughtfulness and consideration and the willingness to say "no" to a feature because, while it seems cool, it will detract from the core purpose of the overall tool.
Yesterday I was inside one of the tools that a just build it prompt created and I asked it to use a NewType pattern for some of the internals.
It wasn't until I was in bed that I thought why? If I'm never reading that code and the agent doesn't benefit from it? Why am I dragging my cognitive baggage into the code base?
Would a future lay vibe coder care what a New type pattern is? Why it helps? Who it helps?
I think the pedagogy of programming will change so that effective prompting will be more accessible.
I guess it depends on whether the extra time you could invest in that kind of thing pays back in terms of context windows, code quality or speed of AI code generation.
It's a massive accelerator for my dumb and small hobby projects. If they take to long I tend to give up and do something else.
Recently I designed and 3d printed a case for a raspberry pi, some encoders and buttons, a touchscreen, just to contol a 500 EUR audio effects paddel (eventide H9)
They official android app was over if the worst apps I ever used. They even blocked paste in the login screen...
Few people have this fx box, and even fewer would need my custom controller for it., build it for an audience of one. But thanks to llms it was not that big of a deal. It allowed me to concentrate on what was fun.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1461079634354639132/1...
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1461079634354639132/1...
I recently for fun gave an llm an image of a dj mixer and record player, in order to recreate a 3d model. It somewhat worked, but it's very basic.
but there's a weird thing that happens when you build for yourself and don't read the code carefully. I caught one of my little internal tools storing API keys in localStorage because that's what the LLM decided to do and I never questioned it. for a personal tool running locally it probably didn't matter much but it made me think about what else I'm not catching. the whole "audience of one" framing kind of implies you can skip the boring review parts but idk, some of those boring parts exist for reasons even when nobody else will use it. I still vibe code everything now but I've gotten way more paranoid about actually reading what gets generated, at least the parts that touch anything sensitive
i feel like the expectations for a "Show HN" project are too high for a passing around a silly little toy that I had the robot throw together. product hunt is for things that are actual products/businesses. so maybe you throw it in a targetted subreddit for a niche interest group?
seems like there should be a marketplace for silly little side-projects, but i'm not sure how you keep it from getting overrun
I'm debating whether to share the one I'm working on at all. I made it for myself so maybe it should stay that way.
not because i think i'll actually use any of them, but because they could inspire me to do something different in my silly little side projects
the goal isn't "product release", it's elementary school "show and tell"
It should be made an official HN tradition like whoishiring.
https://www.tinytooltown.com/
I’ve often thought about standing up a subreddit specifically for side projects but with the proviso of:
- No sign up
- No ads
- No subscription/payments of any kind
Open-source is welcome but optional.
No login or signup is required so it's very easy to try out and quite fun to play with, which probably helped. I think the time people are willing to invest in something before getting some sort of reward is approaching sub-second territory.
Ironically, if people care about you, you can pretty much serve up hot buttered shit and get traction.
Dead Comment
Talking with other knowledgeable humans works just as well for the first thing, but suitable other humans are not as readily available all the time as an LLM, and suitably-chosen LLMs do a pretty good job of engaging whatever part of my brain or personality it is that is stimulated through conversation to think inventively.
For the second thing, LLMs can just answer most of the questions I ask, but I don't trust their answers for reasons that we all know very well, so instead I ask them to point me at technical sources as well, and that often gets me information more quickly than I would have by just starting from a relatively uninformed google search (though Google is getting better at doing the same job, too).
Maybe, we will see solo employee unicorn startup very soon.
This is a really good summary of how I've experienced AI put into words. I'm not really sure how this can be monetized though.
I'm not going to burn $200-1k per day on agents to do some side projects that have been on the back burner. The only reason I'm doing it now is the heavily subsidized or free available models all over the place.
> "Even without hacks, Copilot is still a cheap way to use Claude models"
I have had similar experiences to the author, and I’ve found that just working with a single agent in Antigravity (on the Gemini Pro subscription) is adequate. The extra perceived speed and power of multiple agents and/or Claude Code really didn’t match the output.
With a single Gemini (or sometimes switching to Claude Opus which inexplicably Google provides a generous amount of for free via AG) gives me incremental results so fast that I spend most of my time thinking about what I want (answering unplanned product questions or deciding how to handle edge cases).
I’m fact, sometimes I just get exhausted with so much decision making. However, that’s what it takes to build something useful; we just aren’t accustomed to iterating so fast!
This is the future.
I don't think we'll ever manually write code again. It's just so much faster.
If velocity was the most important criteria, well, we could always write tech-debt faster, we just chose not to.
Unless the LLM/agent is carefully curated, it will produce tech-debt faster than it can fix it.
For some products, it seems not a problem - you just want to validate PMF on a product (of course you'll have a new problem now, which is that everyone with $20 to spare can do the same).
For others, a longer-life product is preferable. We shall have to see how things shake out. My best guess would be that we have more useless stuff that is free or close to free, and fewer useful stuff that is free or close to free.
NFTs and crypto were also the future.
> I don't think we'll ever manually write code again. It's just so much faster.
More work for the people who like to fix tech debt.