[Filligree]

> I'd argue back that LLMs likely have a better understanding of a11y conventions than I do as well.

To make the obvious counterargument, “then you shouldn’t be creating websites at all”.

I don’t actually believe this, but I know people who do. Some would add “shouldn’t be allowed to”.

[bakugo]

I wonder what went so wrong that "if you don't understand [thing] you shouldn't be building [thing]" is now considered a controversial statement.

[mathgeek]

If you're building bridges, this shouldn't be a controversial statement. Same if you're building cryptography software.

It's debatable if the same should apply to the vast majority of software that is less critical.

[BizarroLand]

It has always been a controversial statement.

How are you supposed to learn without doing? Who sets the bar for when you have achieved understanding?

And finally, in specific instances of creating front ends that are inclusive for users, I would argue that being willing to receive feedback and improve is vastly more important than getting it right on the first try.

[fwip]

Well, there's degrees of understanding, as well as degrees of seriousness of the project. You can also learn a lot by building something.

Some people are writing the Netflix homepage (where an outage costs millions of dollars), and some people are writing a blog for three readers.

[kristianc]

That's not what I said, I said I likely understand it less than a 635B parameter LLM, and that using the LLM as a shortcut to that knowledge is something I'd consider perfectly acceptable. I might even become better at it through using the LLM.

[layer8]

You need a certain understanding to be able to judge whether the output is adequate. I think the argument is against people who lack that understanding.

[Filligree]

Keep in mind these are two different things. Not all websites need to be accessible.