Vibe Markets Don’t Always Rhyme with Good Product
My recent Four Cornerstones of Development post (which I found the initial blog mention on a March 2001 archive page - Off the Top :: March 2001 and later on mention I’m working on an essay on it, which I somewhat remember having a publication ask me to write it for them, but no longer exists) was surfacing in discussion a bit lately when talking with those building quick things for themselves that they had used LLM for coding (as well as much of the interaction and visual design), which is viable for personal use for a stretch and then you hit the reliable, maintainable, repeatable thresholds of pain.
Ooh! This Looks Interesting
But, I’ve looked at a quite a few of these projects (not those that aren’t really products) as they initially seem like they would solve a use case gap I have. But, I saw a video for an app that was pitched and it hit a long-standing need I had that has heavy friction. It was an app that linked to Glaze, which is a product / service from Raycast. I read through the information about Glaze and thought this could be “interesting”. I had trouble finding the app that caught my interest as the Glaze app marketplace is a mess. I finally found the app, looked at the descriptions and images and figured I’d give it a go. I found I had to download the Glaze app to seemingly run the app I wanted within Glaze. This was less than optimal putting a silo wrapper around apps, that has never worked well and there is a long and abundant history of attempts at this poor model. (An app with scripts and workflows that can be added through a marketplace / gallery like Raycast or Alfred is a good model, but full apps that is a very different story).
The Needed Perspective Framing (Likely to be skipped to preserve a rant)
I’m not adverse to people using coding assistance, but there is a lot more to building an app or script than just code (and often being a developer or engineer helps keep the AI coding assistance in check as they can resurface long gone poor practices that are abundant in the training material). Not having background in development nor product management nor design creates a lot of gaps and little depth to know if something is actually good or not.
I’ve Seen this Movie Before and …
I opened Glaze and got the app I had interest in set up, and it was slow, not well considered with limited functionality that would be helpful for a basic app in the genre it sat in. The hope I had was shot, I was rather disappointed (it happens a lot) with the level of a “proof of concept” build that only examines is something possible to let you then you interrogate the hell out of it to figure out what is wrong and how to improve it before you get to the prototype or alpha version. I shut the app and won’t open it again.
I looked at other apps in Glaze. All I looked at had the same level of quality (or I should say lack of quality and basic understanding of what an app is, let alone what a product is).
I jumped to the four cornerstones, as I would on something I was building or running a product group that is creating and developing. Things were sort of usable, but half a cornerstone doesn’t get you very far. There is a lot to know and understand beside an interface that does something and I haven’t found AI services that fill much of this ground that needs to be covered in a solid manner. They can help code decently on small-ish projects (and slightly larger) and get okay (yet often problematic) interfaces. But, the other considerations and forward-looking needs to plan for or at a minimum consider so to account for future adaptation are missing or not supported well. The person building has to bring that understanding with them to drive this to a decent outcome.
Creating an app seems easy but there is a lot that should be considered and accounted for in the process, even for something simple. Putting out what will soon be abandoned ware with a “developer” / creator that didn’t quite ship something solid and left it at that, and not to return.
It May be an Idea Farm
There are a lot of great ideas in Glaze, but the lack of quality has me deleting the Glaze and adding a reminder to not go back. The deletion of Glaze took around 2 hours as the thorough app deletion tools I have were getting errors from many components claiming deletion was not permitted. This often happens when an app is running, but the app had been quit. It has been a long time since I’ve had to go through rounds of rebooting my Mac to rip out stubborn poor app remnants.
Know What You are Getting In To
There are people who have been building good niche products that have used AI to help fill gaps. Most of them have a lot of experience with UI, UX, product, and/or development to know what needs to be done at least at a basic level. Not all of them have worked through all four cornerstones, but they have considered them, and have lived through the hell from not considering and/or working through the cornerstones.