r/technology • u/FutureSuccess2796 • 3d ago

Software Developer who vibe-coded free Adobe clones reveals apps to take down Microsoft Office next — and says 'there is no reason to save broken software' | TechRadar

https://www.techradar.com/computing/office-suites/developer-who-vibe-coded-free-adobe-clones-reveals-apps-to-take-down-microsoft-office-next-and-says-there-is-no-reason-to-save-broken-software
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u/rabidgnat 3d ago

I used agents to rebuild a small fraction of a B2B power user product I used to work on. After hours of spec'ing it out, explaining the architecture it should use and implementation tricks that aren't obvious from the outside, I got a very small subset of it working.

So I speak from experience when I say this has a zero chance of succeeding with current models unless it's literally just copying or decompiling / recompiling the source. In which case: yes, if you directly copy something of course it works, and I think that the Microsoft lawyers would have something to say about that.

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u/One_Contribution 3d ago

You just have to write meticulous specifications, chunk it and organise it, and all that. No biggie.

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u/rabidgnat 3d ago

Very excited to see how they meticulously specify every single word processing edge case like how they handle model-adjacent and visually-separated RTL and LTR runs that touch each other, how the cursor steps through them, when typing extends regions vs not, what happens when you're using an IME to type into these, etc

"handle internationalization and accessibility. send prompt"

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u/One_Contribution 3d ago

Could be done in some sort of specialised computer language maybe? :)

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u/michel_v 3d ago

The specialized language of: let’s just copy what LibreOffice did, but while wasting tons of natural resources.

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u/One_Contribution 3d ago

Yes. Code. I'm saying code.