I feel like you're pretty strongly agreeing that taste is important: " I'm finding that you have to have an extremely clear product vision...""

Clear production vision that you're building the right thing in the right way -- this involves a lot of taste to get right. Good PMs have this. Good enginers have this. Visionary leaders have this....

The execution of using AI to generate the code and other artifacts, is a matter of skill. But without the taste that you're building the right thing, with the right features, in a revolutionary way that will be delightful to use....

I've looked at three non-engineer vibe-coded businesses in the past month, and can tell that without taste, they're building a pretty mediocre product at best. The founders don't see it yet. And like the article says, they're just setting themselves up for mediocrity. I think any really good PM would be able to improve all these apps I looked at almost immediately.

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arnorhs 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The way I understood it, the original article is saying the _only_ remaining differentiator is taste and the comment you replied to is saying "wrong, there are also other things, such as effort".

I don't necessarily interpret the comment you replied to as saying that "taste is not important", which seems like what you are replying to, just that it's not the only remaining thing.

I agree that taste gets you far. And I agree with all the examples of good taste that you brought up.

But even with impeccable taste, you still need to learn, try things, have ideas, change your mind etc.. putting all of that in the bucket of "taste" is stretching it..

However, having good taste when putting in the effort, gets your further than with effort alone. In fact, effort alone gets you nowhere, and taste alone gets you nowhere. Once you marry the two you get somewhere.

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hellisothers 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Aren’t you just making their point stronger? Effort is what is being replaced here, with some taste and a pile of AI (formerly effort) you can go to the moon.

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Jensson 5 hours ago | parent [-]

But you still need effort, its not only taste. "Only" means you can do it with no effort.

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theowaway213456 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In other words, it requires a tremendous amount of effort to fully communicate your tastes to the AI. Not everybody wants to expend the time or mental effort doing this! (Once we have more direct brain/computer interfaces, this effort will go down, but I expect it will not be eliminated fully)

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Shog9 3 hours ago | parent [-]

This is the second time in two days I've seen a subthread here with folks seemingly debating whether or not defining and communicating requirements counts as work if the target of those requirements is an LLM system.

I'm confused as to why this is even a question. We used to call this "systems analysis" and it was like... a whole-ass career. LLMs seem to be remarkably capable of using the output, but they're not even close to the first software systems sold as being able to take requirements and turn them into working code (for various definitions of "requirements" and "working").

I'm also skeptical that direct brain interfaces would make this any less work; I don't think "typing" or "english" are the major barriers here, anymore than "drafting" is the major barrier to folks designing their own cars and houses... Any fool thinks they know what they need!

	▲	Izkata 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Thinking might even be more difficult: Unfiltered thoughts, intrusive thoughts, people with no inner voice to encode as text...

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freediddy 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

At some point, just an idea will be enough for your Neurolink to spawn an agent to create 1000 different versions of your idea along with things that mimic your tendencies. There will be no effort, only choice.

	▲	2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
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	▲	skydhash 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Deciding between 1000 different versions is a lot of effort IMO. With manual coding, you’re mostly deciding one decision point at a time, which is easier when you think about it. It just require foresight which comes from experience
	▲	ToucanLoucan 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		As both a software engineer and a creative, I absolutely do not want 1,000 versions of what I am trying to make generated for me. I don't care if it's free or even cheap. I want to make things. I know this is a concept deeply alien to a lot of HN's userbase but I did not get into programming or making art to have finished products; that's a necessary function that is lovely when it's reached, but ultimately, I derive my enjoyment from The Process. The process of finding a problem a user has, and solving it. And yes I'm sure Claude could do it faster than me (and only at the cost of a few acres of rainforest!) but again, you're missing the point. I enjoy the work. That is not a downside to me.

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germinalphrase 11 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

“ I've looked at three non-engineer vibe-coded businesses in the past month, and can tell that without taste, they're building a pretty mediocre product at best.”

Are you doing this altruistically for friends - or as a consultant?