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

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422 points sungam | 3 comments | 07 Sep 25 10:38 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

Coded using Gemini Pro 2.5 (free version) in about 2-3 hours.

Single file including all html/js/css, Vanilla JS, no backend, scores persisted with localStorage.

Deployed using ubuntu/apache2/python/flask on a £5 Digital Ocean server (but could have been hosted on a static hosting provider as it's just a single page with no backend).

Images / metadata stored in an AWS S3 bucket.

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jmull ◴[07 Sep 25 14:12 UTC] No.45158303[source]▶
I kind of love the diy aspect of ai coding.

A dermatologist a short while ago with this idea would have to find a willing and able partner to do a bunch of work -- meaning that most likely it would just remain an idea.

This isn't just for non-tech people either -- I have a decades long list of ideas I'd like to work on but simply do not have time for. So now I'm cranking up the ol' AI agents an seeing what I can do about it.

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jmkni ◴[07 Sep 25 15:18 UTC] No.45158952[source]▶
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

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ecocentrik ◴[07 Sep 25 17:46 UTC] No.45160461[source]▶
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.
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ptero ◴[07 Sep 25 20:06 UTC] No.45161666[source]▶
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.

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bluefirebrand ◴[07 Sep 25 20:20 UTC] No.45161772[source]▶
> 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

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1. goosejuice ◴[07 Sep 25 22:29 UTC] No.45162769[source]▶
That's completely fine for most software.
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2. vrighter ◴[08 Sep 25 06:37 UTC] No.45165237[source]▶
it most definitely is not.
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3. goosejuice ◴[09 Sep 25 00:07 UTC] No.45175773[source]▶
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.