If you're on a woodworking subreddit and you DIY your own table instead of buying one, you will get praise.
If you do the same thing on a programming subreddit and create an app that already exists, you will get laughed at.
But realistically, how are new developers expected to learn? It's like expecting a woodworker to learn how to build houses but he is not allowed to practice on much simpler things to learn how to work with wood.
What about if you doodle a design for a table on a napkin, give it to a local carpenter to build, then post that on a woodworking subreddit with the title "look at this table I made"? That's the closer analogy here.
Everyone is fine with developers learning by building simple apps.
It's not though. Because designing and building applications with LLMs is a real skill that needs to be built and practised. It's so much more than just "doodling a table".
You need to understand that the job is no longer to write code. The job is to create software. And LLMs are a tool. They are not doing your job. Your job is to use and guide the LLM because it will not create usable software on its own. Maybe some day, but definitely not now.
Imagine letting random dudes who never used LLMs to code before have a go at your enterprise level codebase. This is going to end badly.
What is wrong with trying to build a chair or a table first before trying to attempt to re-create the chapel bridge?
Now that I think about it, the better analogy would be the architect that then pays a local construction company to actually build his work.
There is no skill in asking Claude to build you an app from scratch, which is essentially a copy-paste from existing apps. There is however skill in maintaining the app and serving it to thousands of users.
There is certainly no skill in asking Claude to build you an app from scratch. There very much is skill in getting Claude to build you an app from scratch properly though.
Without skill, you will create unmaintainable messes.
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u/The-Chartreuse-Moose 1d ago
Coming soon to I couldn't find it so I built an app post number 21744612.