[localhoster]

We need to start putting guardrails on hn to not allow those esoteric projects to be published. Before ai, it was impressive that a person has that much passion and dedication to go down the rabbit hole, and it usually comes back with some cool anacdotes that are nice to read.

Today, it's shallow, emptied out of the content.

It's not impressive that Claude wrote it, it was impressive if you have written it, OP.

[shakna]

The actual author of the project, has been putting out COBOL passion projects since before LLMs gained popularity. Because they write COBOL.

They've also written a couple dozen games in SQL over the years.

Accusing them of inexpertise with the tools is a gut reaction - but an unfair one in this case.

[HDBaseT]

I don't think Claude wrote this, even so, it's still cool. I'm not proficient in COBOL, although the README.md is very human generated, its not verbose at all.

The creator has a YouTube Channel you can check out: https://www.youtube.com/@icitry/videos

[rfgplk]

> It's not impressive that Claude wrote it, it was impressive if you have written it, OP.

Do you have evidence that it's Claude written? Looking through the source it isn't clear to me, at all. Plus, even if it _was_ Claude/LLM assisted, why does that take away from the project?

[lacoolj]

> why does that take away from the project?

It's like being offered a big mac at a fine dining restaurant. Yes, big mac is gonna taste fine, maybe you can dress it up nicely even. But the restaurant didn't make it, and you feel cheated for buying it (and in this case, wasting your time thinking someone coded it).

Something just existing isn't the same as something being made by someone with passion and effort beyond a one-shot prompt to Fable 5.

[profdevloper]

Wait until you find out about Sysco

[mminer237]

Where you order ingredients doesn't take away from the preparation and cooking.

Pushing a button and having a machine turn those ingredients into a final product does eliminate its specialness.

[akoboldfrying]

I disagree.

[the_sleaze_]

Please remember to thank Chef Mike

[zerr]

> why does that take away from the project?

Because it is process that matters, in such projects, not the outcome. E.g. it is fascinating how one manages to port and run Doom on some microwave led screen... But nobody is going to play it eventually, it is not relevant as the "end product".

[krapp]

You have to remember that this forum is for people who have a passion and an intellectual interest in coding and development, and discussing such with like-minded people. Stimulating intellectual curiosity. An interest in what humans think and do is an implicit part of the experience.

An engineer vibe-coding a project generates an end product, yes, but what is there to be interested in or to discuss? Chances are said engineer isn't even capable of discussing the project in any depth. Are we going to be left discussing nothing but prompts and Claude workflows, and how we got the black box to do a thing? OK. Who cares? I guess we can all politely clap and move on.

I don't know if the posted project was written by an LLM or a human, but I have to agree with localhoster than AI has sucked a lot of the joy out of a lot of HN.

[jr3592]

How this isn't causing an existential crisis in fellow developers, I don't understand. We're seeing our craft dissolve day by day, to the point where even our forums are filled with AI generated crap that we just don't find interesting or engaging.

[krapp]

It is. People have posted threads about how they hate that AI has sucked all of the joy and fun out of their work, and they can feel it rotting their brains, but they just can't not use it. Either because their employers require it or because the compulsion to minmax and optimize their "productivity" overrides all. The dialogue they have with themselves and with HN is a lot like the dialogue someone has questioning the tenets of their own religion.

[HeckFeck]

Aside from that, I don't want to take responsibility for that which I don't understand. And even if I can read the code generated by a LLM, that's not the same as thinking through a solution or planning a design.

You can't call yourself an "engineer" if you just open Claude or Codex and hit "Y" on the keyboard to every prompt like that dipping flamingo when Homer Simpson took the wfh job (Simpsons predicted it).

[k_roy]

> An engineer vibe-coding a project generates an end product, yes, but what is there to be interested in or to discuss? Chances are said engineer isn't even capable of discussing the project in any depth.

And this is reductive to the point of absurdity.

Everybody screaming about AI forgets the fact... you STILL need the domain knowledge. That's where the value in engineering is now.

Imagine a wanna-be game designer thinking they can fire up codex or claude and even with a few weeks and a few hundred dollars in credit, coming out the other side with a game anybody would want to play.

That's not how it works.

I tried with godot. I can tell you everything you want to know about programming/networking/DevOps, and daily use that knowledge. But was very very quickly overwhelmed with the things I DON'T know about game design and development when I tried to develop retro-DQ clone in space.

And yeah, it didn't work.

https://i.imgur.com/hyXQEyA.png

[qweqwe14]

We need to start putting guardrails on hn to not allow those pointless comments complaining about usage of AI.

If you have nothing else to comment on then can you stop crying please?

[goodmythical]

I saw the recent "would a slop button be useful in addition to flags?" and my immediate response was "only if I can also flag people whining about slop.

Adds absolutely nothing to the discussion.

[shermantanktop]

I've whined about it. I try not to. Maybe I'm being a nosy bystander, but here's what I see:

- User X posts some very AI-ish comment: "It's not X --- it's Y, and the reason is important...blah blah"

- User Y responds, taking the original at face value, and disagreeing or otherwise putting time into parsing the ideas in User X's post.

- Me, thinking: User Y is being duped, wasting their time, arguing with a ghost, and otherwise being taken for a ride

That's not my problem, it's User Y's, and they may have knowingly decided to respond even though User X is posting AI slop.

But a forum where that happens a lot doesn't seem like a good place.

[LastTrain]

If slop adds nothing then discussing what is and isn’t slop and how to get rid of it does add something.

[firebot]

We need to start putting guardrails on hn to not allow those pointless comments complaining about usage of peepee poop

Could you stop evacuating your bladder and bowels? Puuuuhfleas

[MBCook]

As OP: I _didn’t_ write it. I’m not the author. I just thought it was neat.

But thanks for the accusation.

[k_roy]

Frankly at this point, it's just as insulting to claim it's shallow and worthless just because Claude did it.

If there is a cool project that comes out the other side, who cares? I am forced to use Claude for day job, and while it's annoying, I am running at a pace that can keep up with my brain, not just what I can shit out and get tested and inevitably miss things. Because you know what's great?

When you have actual controls in place like Jira ticket integration, CI/CD steps that can be considered, but the overall change is small, how many more of those small changes do you think I can get done in a day versus before it? But hey, localhoster says it's shallow and empty of content, so it must be true.

A passion project of mine has been to develop a full decompilation and a randomizer for Neutopia. I've been working on this multiple years. I had it at a point where I had chests randomized, item grants, etc, but that kind of turned into a lame game because of how the existing Neupotia game works.

It's been stuck at 40% for just as long. I pointed codex at it, and now I'm at the at least 85-90% and will have it done within a few weeks.

Given Neutopia is a much smaller target audience, but when this project is released, it will at least as capable as http://alttpr.com/en, and more capable in some ways as random dungeon and overworld layouts are already possible, not just reusing layouts and changing chests.

Codex generated a big chunk of it, so it's clearly a horrible idea and piece of crap not worthy of localhoster here.

[deadbabe]

Exactly. But the damage is done. I find nothing anyone does in tech impresses or interests me anymore. The only things that interest me are things I’d like to also do myself. I imagine it’s probably the same for a lot of other people.

Like OK someone vibecoded an FPS in COBOL or Pokémon emerald in a web browser with web assembly? Ok good for them, piss off karma farmer.

[rfgplk]

> Like OK someone vibecoded an FPS in COBOL or Pokémon emerald in a web browser with web assembly? Ok good for them, piss off karma farmer.

Sorry, but most of these discussions reek of extreme gatekeeping. First off, neither of these things are impossibly difficult and are easily doable with some dedication by hand. LLMs simply accelerate the process, the human still has to come up with the architecture, _idea_ and plan to do something like this.

[goodmythical]

It's only cool if it's in written in brainfuck via pencil and paper.

Bonus points if it's ink on paper.

Bonus points if ink and paper are hand crafted by the creator rather than the filthy casuals that rely on paper mills to make their paper for them.

[rfgplk]

Made me laugh. Thanks :)

[SlightlyLeftPad]

I think what we’re seeing play out in this thread is the devaluation of software engineers. If a growing number of people have the sentiment that an engineer vibecoding an idea has less value than a human doing it then that is all that will matter in the end.

[Revanche1367]

That’s the inevitable result of machines being invented that can largely do our jobs. Just like how artisanal products are often prized over factory productions. The effort put in to and the organic quality of products have pretty much always been of value to consumers and appraisers. “I clicked a few buttons and look what the machine produced” will never be as impressive.

[deadbabe]

If an “artist” comes up with ideas for some artwork then just prompts it out with an LLM I am similarly not impressed, and never will be, even if the image looks cool. It’s a cool image, not an impressive effort. That’s all these code projects are. Shiny objects.