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Comment by ilrwbwrkhv | Hacker News Reader

Yep, this is the way. The way I use LLMs is also to just do the front-end code. Front-end is anyways completely messed up because of JavaScript developers. So whatever the LLM shits out is fine and it looks good. For actual programming and business logic, I write all of the code and the only time I use LLMs is maybe to understand some section of the code but I manually paste it in different LLMs instead of having it in the editor. That's a horrible crutch and will create distance between you and the code.

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If I'd have to give you one piece of unsolicited advice, I'd tell you to seek some therapy so that you can overcome whatever trauma you had with front-end development that's clearly clouding your judgement. That is, if I'd give you that advice. Since I'm not, I'll only say that that's extremely disrespectful with everyone doing good work in user-facing application.

He's got a point though front end development is in a completly ridiculous state right now

And has been for over a decade now.

jquery was the high point.

When you are disrespectful and arrogant, whichever point you are trying to make no matter how valid it is becomes immediately tangential to what you are actually doing. Venting? Bashing? Ranting? All but valid criticism.

Frontend is in such a terrible state that whatever shit code LLM spits out is valid? Give me a break.

No it really is like that. "Frontend" aka jam everything into an all-consuming React/Vue mega project really isn't the most fun. It's very powerful, sometimes necessary (<50% of the times it's chosen), and the tooling is constantly evolving. But it's not a fun experience when it comes to maintaining and growing a large JS codebase... which is why they usually get reinvented every 3yrs. Generally an opposite experience with server side which stays stable for a decade+ without touching it and having a much closer relationship to the database makes better code IMO, less layers/duplication.

Frontend is very fun when you're starting a new project though.

Will copy from an answer I gave below:

  Frontend is in such a terrible state that whatever shit code LLM spits out is valid? Give me a break.

I was replying to your comment about the state of frontend, not OP about using AI, just like the other replies you got.

Anyone admitting in public they use LLM output straight up without careful thought wouldn't get hired by me. But at the same time not everyone is building useful tools that people use... or is a professional.

But still in general I agree the sentiment of any backend dev who avoids modern frontend. The frontend world is the one who created this problem and continues doubling down on JS/React-everything and isolating frontends from backends, for little benefit besides minor DX gains (aka benefiting only the frontend dev, not the product or users).

Why is it acceptable for front end code to be of lower quality than the rest? Your software is only as good as the lowest quality part.

The front end is in the hands of the enemy. They can do what they want with it.

The back end is not. If it falls into the hands of the enemy then it is game over.

Security-wise, it is clearly acceptable for the front end to be of lower quality than the back end.

> Why is it acceptable for front end code to be of lower quality than the rest?

While I don't think that f/end should be of a lower quality than the rest of the stack, I also think that:

1. f/end gets the most churn (i.e. rewritten), so it's kinda pointless if you're spending an extra $FOO months for a quality output when it is going to be significantly rewritten in ($FOO * 2) months.

2. It really is more fault tolerant - an error in the backend stack could lead to widespread data corruption. An error on the f/end results in, typically, misaligned elements that are hard to see/find.

"It's just the UI" is a prevalent misconception in my experience.

My favorite is these "vibe coding" situations that leave SQL injection and auth vulns because copy-paste ChatGPT. Never change.

Far from making me fear for my job, LLMs have me more confident than ever that I'll always be able to find some kind of paying programming work, even if it's all short-term contracts (as I get even older).

So objectively false that I don’t even know where to begin.

You sharing that crystal ball?

I think there are ways of wording what you said without hurting front-end devs. LLMs can be excellent tools while coding to deal with the parts you don't want to sink your own time into.

For instance, I do research into multi-robot systems for a living. One of the most amazing uses of LLMs I've found is that I can ask LLMs to generate visualizations for debugging planners I'm writing. If I were to visualize these things myself Id spend hours trying to learn the details and quirks of the visualization library, and quite frankly it isn't very relevant for my personal goal of writing a multi-agent planner.

I presume for you your focus is backend development. Its convenient to have something that can quickly spit out UIs. The reason you use a LLM is precisely because front-end development is hard.

"other people's bad work makes it pointless for me to do good work"

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