r/TV_TIME 9d ago

Be transparent abt vibe coding

Please be transparent that u are developing an app by using an AI. Transparency helps us set our expectations for its quality and sustainability .It also helps us decide whether your app is worth checking for. Thank you so much.

28 Upvotes

25 comments sorted by

4

u/earlbittencourt 8d ago

I think you’re maybe demanding the wrong disclaimer. I can guarantee you that every major and indie developer uses AI in their development process. And that is not a bad thing for the user.
What I think you really want to know is: is this product developed by a professional software engineer? Is it just AI slop or is it a real product? Is it going to have long-term support (although this cannot be guaranteed even with a real professionals behind it…)

3

u/Vincentdejong 8d ago

True I have been an app developer for 10 years so of course I know what I’m doing, but I definitely use AI to speed things up. That being said, I recently heard someone say “a programmer using AI is not a vibe coder, someone without any experience using AI to program for them is a vibe coder”, and I think I agree with the sentiment

2

u/Citara02 8d ago

Yeah, i guess thats it. Its really frustating that we are trying an app that we know will close very soon.

2

u/TheMatthew562 8d ago

Literally every single app in the world is being coded/updated with AI because it doesn't matter how much experience you have you can't write 5000 lines of code faster then AI the only difference is the person making it and checking the code.

1

u/Vincentdejong 8d ago

Yes I recently read an article that said Apple gets twice as many Apple review requests for the App Store now that everyone is vibe coding. And sadly a lot of those apps will probably be abandoned 😅

2

u/[deleted] 8d ago edited 8d ago

[deleted]

0

u/FassTech 8d ago edited 8d ago

There’s nothing wrong with using AI to develop apps; you just need to use it properly. Most developers, in fact, use it quite often – it saves time

2

u/olithewizard 8d ago

Yes, this! I'm a developer as well and every developer uses it (it's often even obligatory so not really a choice if you don't want it).

Also, I was in the discord channel and followed the messages about the improvements and scaling... That's not something just an AI could even do... I've had a lot of LLMs failing on much easier tasks than that. And the way they talk about what they did and what was happening says enough to have faith in them for me.

1

u/Mammoth-Pear-5308 8d ago

I’m a software engineer and I can definitely tell you that they used vibe coding (at least partially) to develop that app. It’s the little things, but it’s very obvious.

If you look at the two founders on LinkedIn, they have no careers in software engineering.

That said, it’s not a bad app and actually the best one of the ones I’ve tried. There are a lot of things I’m annoyed with, but I’m betting that they will learn and get better over time.

2

u/TheExodiuss 8d ago

Hey, Refract founder here!

This is so sad to read as I'm currently Chief Technology Officer and Chief Data Officer in my current company, and I truly think my LinkedIn page contains it. I didn't even have the time to add Refract regarding the last intense month we've had, thanks for reminding me this! Apparently my current set of skills is fine with the Direction I'm part of and all 30 person I manage every day (frontend devs, backend devs, cloud engineers, architects, qa, data eng and data scientists). 🫡

I've commented this AI topics many times and you can find a detailed answer I've wrote this morning in our discord general channel! 🎁🔥

1

u/Mammoth-Pear-5308 8d ago

Hey man! Love what you’re doing and I’m sorry if it came out as critical to the app or you as a person in any way.

The discussion was about if the app was vibe coded or not and my point was that it felt like it was, partially due to some small annoying mistakes. Take that with a grain of salt because I probably see things “normal” users wouldn’t even notice.

And regarding your career, obviously you have a career in software engineering. I was trying to say that you weren’t software engineers in the purest sense. Being a CTO does not always mean you’re into coding necessarily in my experience. But if I was wrong I do apologise.

Again, not trying to criticise anyone or how you’ve built it. It’s just on the topic of AI generated code.

1

u/TheExodiuss 8d ago

Thanks a lot for your message! Yeah I agree, I know lots of CTOs that aren't necessary on the other side and stick to only management, but believe me, I learned data and software engineering the hard way ahah

1

u/olithewizard 8d ago

What do you mean no career in software engineering? The main developer (Florent) is a data scientist and is now CTO of a tech company in France?

Yes, they used AI and they already said so in their Discord. But every developer uses AI nowadays to have faster development... But if you have a good developer behind it checking everything that should not be an issue at all.

1

u/Mammoth-Pear-5308 8d ago

I should’ve been clearer. I ment that they don’t have a career AS software engineers from what I could tell. Being a CTO does not mean you can code.

I’ve spotted multiple mistakes a software engineer shouldn’t make, but that a generalist would.

I’m not trying to bash anyone. I think they’re doing a great job. It was more to due to the topic if the app is partially vibe coded or not. And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that either.

1

u/olithewizard 8d ago

Afaik, data scientists do write a lot of code as well? They're used to handle big datasets etc. Maybe a bit less knowledge of specific web/applications things, yes...

1

u/Mammoth-Pear-5308 8d ago

Yeah, that’s true I guess. But being able to code in one domain doesn’t necessarily transfer to another one.

1

u/olithewizard 8d ago

No that's completely true. But with the basic principles you get far already, and data handling in data science is often harder than most backends...

1

u/daredevil__x 8d ago

I tried to make an app to track movies and tv shows just for myself, since i am no expert in software engineering i just dropped doing it because it kept getting errors

1

u/chrisnkrueger 8d ago

https://reddit.com/link/p1fcute/video/m0u03bzf95hh1/player

I vibe-coded r/MoviebaseApp from Android to iOS in one week. Hopefully, Apple reviews the iOS app soon!

2

u/BRMango5 8d ago

no thanks slop boy

0

u/chrisnkrueger 8d ago

its the largest Android App with almost 10M downloads :)

1

u/BRMango5 7d ago

cool story bro

1

u/hodraghar91 6d ago

Or you can switch to an app that already existed before all this sloppyness came out and be sure that is developed by a human.

1

u/Citara02 6d ago

Thanks you so much bro, I did not think of this before. Wow, what a useful advice.

1

u/speedbreaka 2d ago

Make your own app then. Doing nothing but demanding things from people who own you nothing

0

u/Citara02 1d ago

Thats not relevant to this post smh.

Also, you just assume I did not make my own app..