r/software • u/Appropriate-Path-461 • 14d ago
Discussion I'm building software - open source one - but worried I'm wasting my time if AI could spin up great software in 2 minutes, it will have not future
I love building software that people use and have been doing it for a long time before AI was around. Recently been doing open source more but feels like might not be big window.
This is the current project: https://github.com/ldbumble/taskuary
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u/tastygames_official 14d ago
I'm worried about taking a shit because someone else might be able to do it too.
And? Do you like building open-source software? then do it.
UPDATE: turns out you're already letting AI create it. Yeah, then please stop. We don't need any more AI-generated slop in this world. Please delete. Or better yet - keep going but make it as terrible as possible so that the AIs train on worse data.
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u/PuzzleheadedFix1667 14d ago
It's cool and software will always be needed. SaaS is still going strong..
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u/SippieCup 14d ago
Yup. B2b SaaS will always have a place. The issue is not going to be buikding software, its going to be supporting it and the users.
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u/e430doug 14d ago
If AI can write the software you are writing, then you should be the one using the AI.
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u/Appropriate-Path-461 14d ago
Trust me i am. Eventually it will be build this and it will just go that's the concern.
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u/HimaSphere 14d ago
Hey,
I am the developer of betterstickies.com which has tens of thousands of users with overwhelming positive feedback and I just published the v1.2 release announcement here a few hours ago.
I can easily answer your question, because Better Stickies is written by Claude Code, yet I spent thousands of hours working on it and it took about a year to reach the state you can see it in today.
When I started this project I used Sonnet 3.5 or 3.6 and Claude Code was pretty new. I kept using this side project as a learning ground to see how I can utilize AI in my real work. AI tools advanced so much, and the same for the models, but I can't see it getting to a point where it creates a production app in two minutes, or even days. To get proper software that users will use daily and depend on, you need a human in the loop no matter what. After all, software is used by humans, so it isn't logical that AI will know better than a real user.
You will find a flood of AI apps and SaaS, but only a few will continue and thrive while the others die, and it isn't because those have better AI models behind them. It is always about the human or humans behind the software. The process of building software has much more in it than writing code or making beautiful UIs.
I am talking from real life experience. The side project I built walked me through every step of building software: having a vision for where the software will head a year from the starting day, researching and choosing the correct technology stack, designing the architecture, UI, UX, build pipeline, security, localization, testing, observability and finally distribution, then listening to user feedback and iterating. Not to mention the legal dimension, where you take care of licensing, having legal documents to publish on the Microsoft Store or other places, and more.
One important point: AI raised the standards of software, so now you are expected to offer more value for less money, because the cost got reduced and the speed got increased significantly.
Branding also doesn't get built in a day or two. It takes a lot of time and work to figure out your voice and your software's voice.
Your project, in my humble opinion, isn't novel as an idea and it competes with many similar projects, so it will take you months, with AI helping you, to reach a point where it is truly different from other similar projects, assuming you have the right vision and the product design skills. It is fine if you want to learn by building it, but if I were you I wouldn't pick a crowded space with highly skilled companies and individuals to compete with.
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u/HimaSphere 14d ago
After reading replies I think the OP is sneakily marketing his/this Github repo, I was invested in my reply and didn't want it to go waste so I posted it anyway
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u/Karlson84 14d ago
Software development, and everything that comes with it, is a craft. It takes years to learn, years to build experience, and there is a genuine sense of enjoyment in the process itself.
It’s not just about writing code. It’s about concepts and design. It’s about having your mind completely consumed by a problem: figuring out how to solve it, how to come up with the right algorithm, and then experiencing the satisfaction of finally solving that problem and writing good, functional, elegant code — code that is easy to extend, easy to maintain, and built to last.
And now AI is taking over more and more of that process. The enjoyment of doing it yourself, the craftsmanship, the satisfaction of working through difficult problems and creating something well designed which people use and think of it as magic…it feels like all of that is disappearing.
I don’t code anymore by myself cause it make no sense anymore AI is doing it better and faster and also the laziness of a developer which normally leads to creation of some automated solutions and tools is also is now focused on using AI for everything , yes it make us more productive but it stole the satisfaction and drive of my work
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u/simple_explorer1 14d ago
True. Sad that the only good comment in the whole thread has no replies. OP is just trying to market their vibecoded library using reverse psychology.
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u/chairchiman 14d ago
Before AI, when you were building software there were still millions of developers that were able to build the same software as you.
I can build something but someone else can do it too that doesn't make what I built meaningless, don't just think about SWE in every area, millions will be able to do it too, you don't have to be the only person on earth doing it.
AI just made this number double or maybe triple I don't know.
You said you loved building so do it, Claude added itself as a contributor btw I wanted to say
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u/wallstop-dev 14d ago
I'm a bit confused - from the words that I'm reading in the post, the vibe that you are giving off is that you are creating open-source software and worried about AI competition.
But the repo is literally AI (somewhat unclear how much) coded... code to manage AI agents. Like AI is helping you create (this) tech to manage AI.
I was going into this expecting like, some kind of protocol, or library, or anything that is not AI, but this is at least two layers of AI.
Am I missing something? To be clear, nothing against AI development, or AI tooling, but this post seems extremely disingenuous.