Show HN: I'm a dermatologist and I vibe coded a skin cancer learning app

Same, I've had ideas rattling around in my brain for years which I've just never executed on, because I'm 'pretty sure' they won't work and it's not been worth the effort

I've been coding professionally for ~20 years now, so it's not that I don't know what to do, it's just a time sink

Now I'm blasting through them with AI and getting them out there just in case

They're a bit crap, but better than not existing at all, you never know

I'm a big fan of barriers to entry and using effort as a filter for good work. This derma app could be so much better if it actually taught laypeople to identify the difference between carcinomas, melanomas and non-cancerous moles instead of just being a fixed loop quiz.

>They're a bit crap, but better than not existing at all, you never know

I don't agree. I think because of llm/vibe coding my random ideas I've actually wasted more time then if I did them manually. The vibe code as you said is often crap and often after I spend a lot of time on it. Realize that there are countless subtle errors that mean its not actually doing what I was intending at all. I've learned nothing and made a pointless app that does not even do anything but looks like it does.

Thats the big allure that has been keeping "AI" hype floating. It always seems so dang close to being a magic wand. Then upon time spent reviewing and a critical eye you realize it has been tricking you like a janitor that is just sweeping dirt under the rug.

At this point I've relegated LLM to advanced find replace and Formatted data structuring(Take this list make it into JSON) and that's about it. There are basically tools that do everything else llms do that already exist and do it better.

I can't count at this point how many times "AI" has taken some sort of logic I want then makes a bunch of complex looking stuff that takes forever to review and I find out it fudged the logic to simply always be true/false when its not even a boolean problem.

Well I mean more low-brow stuff like "Pint?", a social media app to find other people to go for a pint with :)

IMO it is better to keep the barriers to entry as low as possible for prototyping. Letting domain experts build what they have in mind themselves, on a shoestring, is a powerful ability.

Most such prototypes get tossed because of a flaw in the idea, not because they lacked professional software help. If something clicks the prototype can get rebuilt properly. Raising the barriers to entry means significantly fewer things get tried. My 2c.

> IMO it is better to keep the barriers to entry as low as possible for prototyping

Not in an industry where prototypes very often get thrown into production because decision makers don't know anything about the value of good tech, security, etc

Same here, that's why I only ever code in assembly and recommend everyone else to do the same.

That's completely fine for most software.

brother, no one cares. if LLMs made something exist that did not exist previously, they worked. it doesnt matter if you could have done it faster by hand if doing so would have resulted in the program not existing.

well yeah, better not existing at all actually, if they're crap and you're ok with that. Those just serve to pad out your resume for nontechnical people. It's not like you're actually learning much if you couldn't be bothered to even remove the crap parts

it most definitely is not.

My Resume has plenty of padding already and it's not about learning, it's about "maybe this random idea might actually work" and proving out that concept

To anyone wondering if their are LLM paid shills on HN here is proof: A less than 30 day old account which only comment is a nonsense praise of LLM against legitimate criticism.

user: anthonypasq96 created: 22 days ago karma: 2 about: submissions comments favorites

why are people online obsessed with the idea that anyone who disagrees with them is a paid actor

It's perfectly fine for most MVPs to go into production. Most SaaS software is solved. Prototypes are outsourcing the hard parts around security. The hard part is making a sale and finding the right fit. Spending 4x the cost on a product that never makes a sale is bad economics. This app isn't remotely harmful, so do you care to make an argument for why it shouldn't exist?

Should decision makers be more informed? Yes, of course, but that's not an argument for gatekeeping. We shouldn't be gatekeeping software or the web. Not through licensure or some arbitrary meaning of "effort". That will do nothing but stifle job growth and I'd very much like to keep developers employed.