8 ms·

If you’re working on an app or software that has few users, no revenue or minimal revenue, tolerance to bugs is higher and just another Claude prompt away, Soft

If you’re working on an app or software that has few users, no revenue or minimal revenue, tolerance to bugs is higher and just another Claude prompt away, Software factories are a perfect fit. Most personal software or hobby software or 0-1 yet-to-find-PMF startups belong in this category. You can even take a stand that you’ll never look at the code and just ship. This is a perfect equilibrium for a Software factory, where the only input or feedback is a one-liner/specced requirement and the only output is outcome of whether the one-liner requirement worked or not. For almost any other software that does not fit this criteria, software factories are yet to solve the Intent and Subjective Quality problem.

aleph_minus_one 2mo ago
> If you’re working on an app or software that has few users, no revenue or minimal revenue, tolerance to bugs is higher and just another Claude prompt away, Software factories are a perfect fit. Most personal software or hobby software or 0-1 yet-to-find-PMF startups belong in this category. I would rather claim that for my personal/hobby software, I apply a much higher quality standard than for the software that I write at work. Believe me: I would love to apply the same high (or even higher) standard at work, too. The problem rather is that it is a very common situation that bosses actively prohibit me from rocking the boat too much. If I make (I think typically good) suggestions, I often get very stern reactions. At work, elegance is not celebrated - just implement the tasks of users who don't care about quality or elegance.
- andrewljohnson 2mo ago
  You either need to quit or keep your head down, I can’t tell which.
  - taneq 2mo ago
    If you need to actively keep your head down, you need to quit. Doesn’t matter whether ‘the problem’ is the employer, the employee, both, or neither. They’re a bad fit for each other.
    - eru 2mo ago
      Keep your head down, while you look for alternatives. No need to pre-emptively quit, if you can coast and collect a paycheck.
    - podocarp 2mo ago
      I don't think so? It's very common in both large companies and small startups where pragmatism has a higher priority than so called elegance or whatever you call it the "artisan" feel. It's varying shades of "perfect is the enemy of good", where different cultures and business environments dictate how much a manager is going to tolerate your proposed refactoring. At least that's what I got from the parent lost.
    - swiftcoder 2mo ago
      > If you need to actively keep your head down, you need to quit. This really depends on whether they are paying you decently. The number of people I've met who found a nice corner in FAANG, and decided to keep their head down and collect a steady paycheque... One may find one can swallow a lot of engineering pride for a recurring six figures
      - yurishimo 2mo ago
        And that’s not to say anything about personal situations. Family obligations, immigration requirements, etc. Especially in the current job market, “find a new job and quit” is going to cost you so much time and effort and for many people it will still be a lateral move in terms of company quality in regards to engineering practices. It’s hard to make these kinds of deep company discoveries until you’re in the thick of it but by then it’s too late. Personally, I’m advocating for change where I can and not taking it personally when the manager says no. I put in enough effort not to get paged in the middle of the night which is generally plenty for management. It helps that I don’t work in a super strict business environment. There’s more to life outside of work as well so if you can silo that bit of your life and enjoy things outside of working hours and you’re content, so be it.
- tonyedgecombe 2mo ago
  I’m always surprised when I read comments like this. I’ve come across far more situations where individual contributions take a slapdash approach and management is disengaged than management actively imposing poor quality work.
bandrami 2mo ago
> few users, no revenue or minimal revenue The 900 pound gorilla has for a while been "where is all the output of these LLMs?", and this seems to be the answer; the number of apps on the various app stores has skyrocketed over the past two quarters but installs overall are actually down a little bit. So it seems like we've had an explosion of software that one or two people use. Which is a cool situation to think about but is pretty bearish for the "AI as a profitable business" idea.
- tmikaeld 2mo ago
  Marketing was a problem with apps even before AI, which, with today’s slopforests makes it even harder for consumers to see any of your trees even if they wanted to.
  - davidgl 2mo ago
    100 points for the term Slopforest :-)
  - bandrami 2mo ago
    Right but if we're going to a small-batch bespoke development model then "marketing" more or less disappears because why would I pay someone to talk to an LLM when I can also talk to an LLM? The money goes from the end user to the lab in this model.
    - jambalaya8 2mo ago
      What happens then, though? Is it good to have tens or hundreds of thousands of potentially angry marketing managers roaming around that were developed out of careers?
      - bandrami 2mo ago
        IDK, get Springsteen to record an aid concert for them?
preg_match 2mo ago
The perfect poster boy is system scripts. They’re not even published usually, but being able to just generate < 500 line scripts for everything is a huge boon.
- dhorthy 2mo ago
  I agree this rocks I do this almost daily
  - preg_match 2mo ago
    It goes hand in hand with Linux desktops too, because everything is just so much more scriptable. That used to be intimating, user unfriendly, and maybe it still is. But with AI it enables so many new avenues.
    - black_knight 2mo ago
      Now that LLMs can do the actual configuration, I started using NixOS and now all my config lives in one repo, and every quality of life improvement fans out to every machine without issue. Since Claude (code) knows all about my system, it will also tailor solutions to it when I ask how to do something. Using it I can often find really neat solutions to whatever sys admin task I can imagine.

aleph_minus_one 2mo ago

> If you’re working on an app or software that has few users, no revenue or minimal revenue, tolerance to bugs is higher and just another Claude prompt away, Software factories are a perfect fit. Most personal software or hobby software or 0-1 yet-to-find-PMF startups belong in this category. I would rather claim that for my personal/hobby software, I apply a much higher quality standard than for the software that I write at work. Believe me: I would love to apply the same high (or even higher) standard at work, too. The problem rather is that it is a very common situation that bosses actively prohibit me from rocking the boat too much. If I make (I think typically good) suggestions, I often get very stern reactions. At work, elegance is not celebrated - just implement the tasks of users who don't care about quality or elegance.

andrewljohnson 2mo ago
You either need to quit or keep your head down, I can’t tell which.
- taneq 2mo ago
  If you need to actively keep your head down, you need to quit. Doesn’t matter whether ‘the problem’ is the employer, the employee, both, or neither. They’re a bad fit for each other.
  - eru 2mo ago
    Keep your head down, while you look for alternatives. No need to pre-emptively quit, if you can coast and collect a paycheck.
  - podocarp 2mo ago
    I don't think so? It's very common in both large companies and small startups where pragmatism has a higher priority than so called elegance or whatever you call it the "artisan" feel. It's varying shades of "perfect is the enemy of good", where different cultures and business environments dictate how much a manager is going to tolerate your proposed refactoring. At least that's what I got from the parent lost.
  - swiftcoder 2mo ago
    > If you need to actively keep your head down, you need to quit. This really depends on whether they are paying you decently. The number of people I've met who found a nice corner in FAANG, and decided to keep their head down and collect a steady paycheque... One may find one can swallow a lot of engineering pride for a recurring six figures
    - yurishimo 2mo ago
      And that’s not to say anything about personal situations. Family obligations, immigration requirements, etc. Especially in the current job market, “find a new job and quit” is going to cost you so much time and effort and for many people it will still be a lateral move in terms of company quality in regards to engineering practices. It’s hard to make these kinds of deep company discoveries until you’re in the thick of it but by then it’s too late. Personally, I’m advocating for change where I can and not taking it personally when the manager says no. I put in enough effort not to get paged in the middle of the night which is generally plenty for management. It helps that I don’t work in a super strict business environment. There’s more to life outside of work as well so if you can silo that bit of your life and enjoy things outside of working hours and you’re content, so be it.
tonyedgecombe 2mo ago
I’m always surprised when I read comments like this. I’ve come across far more situations where individual contributions take a slapdash approach and management is disengaged than management actively imposing poor quality work.

bandrami 2mo ago

> few users, no revenue or minimal revenue The 900 pound gorilla has for a while been "where is all the output of these LLMs?", and this seems to be the answer; the number of apps on the various app stores has skyrocketed over the past two quarters but installs overall are actually down a little bit. So it seems like we've had an explosion of software that one or two people use. Which is a cool situation to think about but is pretty bearish for the "AI as a profitable business" idea.

tmikaeld 2mo ago
Marketing was a problem with apps even before AI, which, with today’s slopforests makes it even harder for consumers to see any of your trees even if they wanted to.
- davidgl 2mo ago
  100 points for the term Slopforest :-)
- bandrami 2mo ago
  Right but if we're going to a small-batch bespoke development model then "marketing" more or less disappears because why would I pay someone to talk to an LLM when I can also talk to an LLM? The money goes from the end user to the lab in this model.
  - jambalaya8 2mo ago
    What happens then, though? Is it good to have tens or hundreds of thousands of potentially angry marketing managers roaming around that were developed out of careers?
    - bandrami 2mo ago
      IDK, get Springsteen to record an aid concert for them?

preg_match 2mo ago

The perfect poster boy is system scripts. They’re not even published usually, but being able to just generate < 500 line scripts for everything is a huge boon.

dhorthy 2mo ago
I agree this rocks I do this almost daily
- preg_match 2mo ago
  It goes hand in hand with Linux desktops too, because everything is just so much more scriptable. That used to be intimating, user unfriendly, and maybe it still is. But with AI it enables so many new avenues.
  - black_knight 2mo ago
    Now that LLMs can do the actual configuration, I started using NixOS and now all my config lives in one repo, and every quality of life improvement fans out to every machine without issue. Since Claude (code) knows all about my system, it will also tailor solutions to it when I ask how to do something. Using it I can often find really neat solutions to whatever sys admin task I can imagine.