[HN Gopher] Reflecting on WikiTok
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Reflecting on WikiTok
Author : aizk
Score : 144 points
Date : 2025-03-25 06:09 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.aizk.sh)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.aizk.sh)
| timkq wrote:
| It's great that LLMs provide opportunity for non-software
| engineers to make tech products, but I wonder how those "vibe-
| coded" products will fare when faced with actually maintaining
| the code (and also accounting for tech debt..)
| Onavo wrote:
| But OP is a software engineer, I doubt a non software engineer
| can turn around a vibe coded app so quickly.
| aizk wrote:
| Feel free to judge for yourself what I am. Started in civil
| engineering, pivoted hard 6 months ago. That gave me a leg up
| in UI/UX, design experience, all that.
|
| https://www.aizk.sh/Isaac's%20Resume.pdf
|
| Also vibe coding is useless without marketing skills,
| deployment skills, distribution, social media skills, etc.
| pajamasam wrote:
| It's not like we're doing very well with maintenance and tech
| debt in any case. AI might be able to help with that in the
| future.
| blueflow wrote:
| Look at your tech stack, go down until you come to the level
| where things "just work". This is where the maintained
| software begins. The stuff you fill your docker base images
| with.
| diggan wrote:
| > faced with actually maintaining the code (and also accounting
| for tech debt..)
|
| I guess they'll learn it as they come across it? "Oh Claude, my
| code is almost like a plate of spaghetti, how can I make it
| easier to add new features without breaking something else?"
| "Dear user, here is what technical debt and unit tests mean:
| ..."
|
| Besides, all of us self-learned programmers mostly learned
| about those things the hard way as well, by experiencing the
| real drawbacks of not caring about such things until too late
| and stuff is already up and running with real users.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| Here's the thing: the formally trained programmers learn it
| that way too. They're just less inclined to admit it.
| aizk wrote:
| Does writing software with an LLM not make me a software
| engineer?
| non- wrote:
| OP is a software engineer, so this is a software engineer using
| LLM's to make tech products.
| mrkramer wrote:
| Tech debt of your hobby pet project? It's not like millions of
| people will be using it.
| wonger_ wrote:
| I feel like I could easily be caught by one of those journalist
| scams. Especially when low on sleep.
| wewewedxfgdf wrote:
| There's no date on the article so its hard to know when its from.
| jalict wrote:
| 28/02/2025 You can see it on the posts page
| https://www.aizk.sh/posts
| aizk wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback I'll push a fix for that tomorrow.
| lwansbrough wrote:
| > I built wikitok.io in about 2 hours (but not the iphone app
| that doesn't work, nor the play store rip off, nor wikitok.net
| but I'm getting ahead of myself). It all came from this tweet.
|
| This phrasing seems to suggest they think they invented the idea
| of "TikTok but it's Wikipedia". I see the author is OP, so my
| suggestion might be to consider rephrasing a bit as it comes off
| a bit accusatory.
|
| I did try my hand on this project after seeing this bare-bones
| viral version. (I had the same idea in my notes app dated a
| couple years ago.) I went a different route, opting to pre-parse
| wikitext via my own API to deliver the app an AST that can be
| rendered natively & prettier than your standard Wikipedia page.
| Not a fun format to parse. Not fun at all. I don't recommend it.
| And it took significantly longer than 2 hours and was never
| released, so props to the author for turning this project around
| so fast.
| diggan wrote:
| > This phrasing seems to suggest they think they invented the
| idea of "TikTok but it's Wikipedia". I see the author is OP, so
| my suggestion might be to consider rephrasing a bit as it comes
| off a bit accusatory.
|
| Am I missing something, it comes off as the precise opposite to
| me? OP wrote "I built X, but the idea came from this source"
| basically, acknowledging they built the thing but the idea came
| from somewhere else.
| aizk wrote:
| Some of them came before me, but most of them were clones
| that came after me. I just wanted to highlight what happens
| when you go viral - there will be copycats.
| slevis wrote:
| > This phrasing seems to suggest they think they invented the
| idea of "TikTok but it's Wikipedia".
|
| The author is giving credit. Literally the opposite of your
| interpretation.
|
| > I had the same idea in my notes app dated a couple years ago.
|
| On the other hand this seems as if you now want to claim to be
| the inventor of the idea?
| aizk wrote:
| A mixture of both. Some of those were copycats and some of
| those came before me, (the iPhone app, but I didn't know
| about it when I made the website). The point I was making was
| there's lots of clones happening when you go viral.
| aizk wrote:
| The point of that phrase was just to highlight the derivatives
| the I had no affiliation with.
|
| I built it and marketed it, but the idea came from some tweets
| that were gaining momentum.
| lwansbrough wrote:
| Oh I see. My apologies, my assumption was that you had wrote
| the tweet.
| aizk wrote:
| Maybe I should've made that a screenshot or embedded tweet,
| if you scroll over it / don't click on it you lose context.
| Realtime website UI feedback here.
| Emma_Goldman wrote:
| Bizarre confabulation: the text you quote says nothing of the
| sort. They say the made one site, not to be confused with
| other, similar sites, and that the idea originates with someone
| else's tweet. Why jump to negative conclusions when they are
| sharing their project for the first time?
| pajamasam wrote:
| I like this point of view:
|
| > And with regards to AI taking jobs - it obviously will become a
| serious problem in future. But being a doomer right now is like
| lying down in a parking lot waiting to get run over - you're
| surrendering to a pointless outcome while the rest of the world
| keeps moving. There's still so much to build and accomplish.
| Jdfmiller wrote:
| This: And with regards to AI taking jobs - it
| obviously will become a serious problem in future. But being a
| doomer right now is like lying down in a parking lot waiting to
| get run over - you're surrendering to a pointless outcome while
| the rest of the world keeps moving.
|
| Great sentiment. I've had a similar experience with LLMs and
| writing code - helpful when keeping the requests small, and a
| background in the area is essential for knowing what is and isn't
| total crap. Feel the fear and do it anyway.
|
| Inspiring to see you take on a different career path and go for
| it, I feel i'm on a similar journey right now, thanks for taking
| the time to write it up.
| johnisgood wrote:
| > and a background in the area is essential
|
| Yes, precisely. Maybe one could (re)make something using LLMs
| without understanding a thing, but that is as good as copy
| pasting from SO without understanding.
| vondur wrote:
| > but that is as good as copy pasting from SO without
| understanding.
|
| I'm sure there are a large amount of programmers who do this
| quite often..
| johnisgood wrote:
| Of course, they now probably switched to LLMs.
| throwawayk7h wrote:
| This is not what a doomer is. A doomer is not a nihilist. A
| doomer is someone who recognizes a great threat of impending
| doom. They may raise the alarm bell in response. If they choose
| to lie down and wait to get run over, that's a nihilist doomer.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| Laying down and rotting is it's own thing entirely and the
| Doomers and the Rotters are at odds.
| SR2Z wrote:
| > If they choose to lie down and wait to get run over, that's
| a nihilist doomer.
|
| So... almost all doomers?
| dev_chhatbar wrote:
| I really like this idea! Thank you for making it! I personally
| prefer web-apps to phone-apps but wouldn't mind installing one if
| its in the pipeline from OP!
| aizk wrote:
| There is no phone app! There's a progressive web app you can
| download. Funnily, I thought I solved the mobile issue making
| the PWA until I realized 99% of people have no idea what a
| progressive web app is.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| "I realized 99% of people have no idea what a progressive web
| app."
|
| I never used it, Yeah I know it exist but who tf use that????
| and I'm considering myself "techy"
| aizk wrote:
| Yeah I had a request on GitHub for it, so I implemented it!
| But it was only a "fix" for a very specific technical group
| people, not ALL the users. Good lesson learned there.
| non- wrote:
| Maybe a "Download App" button that installs the PWA would
| help
| aizk wrote:
| That smart but not ideal - think of the people who will
| navigate directly to the app store and type "wikitok"
| janalsncm wrote:
| Disagree on the "algorithm" bit but that's ok.
|
| "Random" is an algorithm. It just says that the next article you
| should read has no relationship with anything you've read before.
| That is a point of view. It's good for an "explore" phase, where
| you want to expose yourself to as much variety as possible.
|
| But eventually most people want to "exploit" their impressions
| from before. Just like I don't want to always roll the dice on
| restaurants, sometimes I want to go back to one that I know is
| good.
| bradleykingz wrote:
| It's shocking how unhinged scammers can be... Unstoppable farting
| dog? Seriously...?
| the-chitmonger wrote:
| Hey, I'm also a former civil engineer-turned SWE in the NJ/NYC
| area! Nice to know that there are more of us out there. I already
| spend hours looking through Wikipedia articles, so when your site
| dropped I was on it right away. I dodged the AI conversation
| entirely by getting into a state government position where my job
| is all but guaranteed by the union.
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(page generated 2025-03-25 23:02 UTC)