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points by llama_drama 1 day ago | 0 comments

There's this joke like "I used to have 5 unfinished side projects, but AI changed everything. Now I have 30 unfinished side projects". And in my case it's not even a joke

[–] brabel 22 hours ago

Well ai made it extremely easy to finish things. Projects are usually left unfinished because the last mile is filled with boring and tedious tasks we do not like to do. AI loves those tasks. I have finished everything I bothered to, most of the time I still wrote stuff by hand, the AI just fixed tests for me (usually OS specific stuff that I can’t test locally which is a pain), told me what I was doing wrong so it was trivial for me to fix it, and checked my documentation which invariably got out of date.

[–] vtjeng 1 day ago

I've definitely found that while "AI makes getting from 0-80 done much easier than the 80-100" holds true, it is much easier to get my work to a quality bar that I'm excited to share with my peers...

[–] sgt101 20 hours ago

There's still a lot of effort required to move something from "good idea, loads to do" to "really finished and really works and I've proved it".

But its a lot less effort that when we didn't have LLM's.

Interestingly it does seem that it's still enough effort to prevent most folks from making that step though.

[–] erikus 1 day ago

So relatable. But I have some finished projects now and some of them I use daily.

[–] wolfinterval 19 hours ago

The definition of "finished" has changed for me also.

More and more, I am using half finished as a polished product, but pragmatically very useful software I have built myself.

More importantly, I see no reason to polish this into a product. It is more useful in this half finished, easily moldable state.

Like it use to make sense to bake the clay and sell the hardened output but now I want to keep the soft clay so it can be molded to my changing needs. I keep adding to a collection of these moldable states.

[–] jack_pp 1 day ago

Can't really blame AI for that though.

[–] sodapopcan 1 day ago

They aren't blaming AI, they are just backing up the "not much has changed" idea.

[–] furyofantares 1 day ago

It's always been easier to start a project than finish it, and LLMs make starting a project roughly free. I'm not sure they change how much work it is to finish it all that much.

I mean, I have finished more side projects than before. So they do change it. Just not as dramatically.

[–] anonymous908213 1 day ago

Of course you can. LLMs take you from 0 to 80 instantly. They are then completely incapable of getting from 80 to 100 and making something worth shipping to production. They are the ultimate unfinished side project generator.

[–] StilesCrisis 1 day ago

Have you, uh, used them recently? LLMs absolutely get to 100 now.

[–] brabel 22 hours ago

I’m can’t even believe that they think they can’t finish stuff. I am finishing absolutely everything I care to now. LLMs are the best thing ever to anyone who has unfinished stuff lying around. See the Goose programming language for an example, its design was written 15 years ago and perfected over time but the effort to write the compiler was just too much… before LLM. Claude wrote it in a couple of weeks I think. And I tried it, it’s as good as it looks.

[–] anonymous908213 1 day ago

For a definition of 100 which includes nobody actually using any LLM-written software in production at scale, other than Codex and Claude Code, which are both horrifically buggy, bloated, insecure pieces of software that are only used for their association with another piece of software gated behind them and which nobody would choose to use if they were themselves third-party harnesses. If LLMs could get to 100, the promised software revolution I am told is here every day would actually be visible.

We would be using LLM-generated compilers, an LLM-generated OS, an LLM-generated browser, LLM-generated databases, etc. etc. etc. etc, and not only are we not using all of those things, we're not using a single one of those things. Nobody is buying LLM-generated games, nobody is using LLM-generated consumer applications that replace Photoshop or Final Cut or Blender or Unity ("PhotoCraft" is itself an admitted scam from its own prompter, who outright confessed here that he lied about its capabilities on Reddit to build hype), nobody is accomplishing anything of economic value. LLMs are obviously hundreds of times more "productive" than humans, so the moment they can reach 100, all of these things would happen basically overnight, and yet none of them have happened. Curious, isn't it?

[–] StilesCrisis 1 day ago

What makes you think people _aren't_ using LLMs to work on your OS, your compilers, your databases? I know for a fact Microsoft is using LLMs heavily in development. Linux now accepts LLM PRs. We just had an article a few days ago about how PostgreSQL is having dozens of bugs discovered and fixed via LLMs. I work in compilers and everyone I know uses LLMs.

[–] anonymous908213 1 day ago

I am talking about people starting new projects, which was the subject of this subthread. I am aware that Microsoft is using LLMs to work on Windows, and now they have remote code execution in MS Paint. Great. The ability to commit shit code to something that is already in production is not exactly revolutionary either.

> how PostgreSQL is having dozens of bugs discovered and fixed via LLMs

The PostgreSQL article was specifically about how the LLMs were incapable of fixing bugs, meaning they had to delay their next major version because humans were unable to deal with the volume of issues reported. I did not make a claim that LLMs are useless, could not help review code, etc, but there is a difference between a useful tool and something that generates production-ready software wholesale.

This is what "100" looks like if you try to generate a DB from scratch: https://jepsen.io/analyses/particledb-1.1.4 - written in Rust, ""formally verified"", scammed AI-pilled investors out of $90 million for a database that fundamentally doesn't work in any capacity whatsoever.

[–] kristiandupont 1 day ago

>I am talking about people starting new projects, which was the subject of this subthread.

The subthread was also about 80-100. This seems like a goal post move.

>The PostgreSQL article was specifically about how the LLMs were incapable of fixing bugs

We must have read different articles. This one does not say that, as best as I can tell: https://www.theregister.com/databases/2026/10/16/postgres-19...

[–] drivebyhooting 1 day ago

What prevents AI from cloning photoshop feature for feature, bug for bug?

You have the perfect verifier.

[–] anonymous908213 1 day ago

The Halting Problem, for one.

[–] glennfiedler 1 day ago

https://github.com/storytold/photocraft

[–] ChickeNES 23 hours ago

> We would be using LLM-generated compilers, an LLM-generated OS, an LLM-generated browser, LLM-generated databases, etc. etc. etc. etc, and not only are we not using all of those things, we're not using a single one of those things.

Speak for yourself :)

[–] krapp 1 day ago

Skill issue. I had 30 unfinished side projects even before AI. Just raw talent.

[–] lgl 1 day ago

No idea what you're talking about. I'm using AI to help me on my paperclip production side project, and it's going great!