3 ms·

>My app has 200k LOC + 100k in tests, and there is no sign of the AI slowing down or being unable to maintain it. May I ask what does this app do ? 200k is lik

>My app has 200k LOC + 100k in tests, and there is no sign of the AI slowing down or being unable to maintain it. May I ask what does this app do ? 200k is like GTA vice city level, is like sqlite level, If its a financial tracker or a to-do list or an agent coordinator I am going to kill myself

user43928 20d ago
I'm not going to share exact details about my paid app, but you could think media management, with a lot of extra features, an in-app browser with custom controls, and multiple AI powered features with on device processing.
- SoftTalker 20d ago
  You're selling an app, but don't want to share any details, or even name it? Call me suspicious.
  - user43928 20d ago
    I said I'm hoping to complete it this month and I already shared some details. Should I post my market and keyword research too, here on this site for software developers and entrepreneurs?
    - lelanthran 20d ago
      It doesn't matter when you post it; some kid with a $200 claude sub (or cheaper) is going to clone it for far cheaper than you, and sell it for far cheaper than you. There's no friction to what you produced, so why do you think that you won't have 100s of clones, all cheaper? We're now in a market for lemons as far as software goes.
      - user43928 20d ago
        I spent hundreds of hours on this, so there is still some friction. If I told you the exact market and use case, I'd still have a decent head start, but indeed, someone without a job could invest more time than I do. People in a cheaper location can work for far cheaper than I can afford to. With head start I don't meant that the idea is so novel that I need to keep it a secret. However, I believe that if there is an established app that does the same thing, and your app cannot beat it on quality, it will be hard to attract users.
        bakugo 20d ago
        Hundreds of hours doing what? If you're not reviewing the code, then what are you doing, just planning features? Because that would be trivial to copy in a fraction of the time by just feeding screenshots of your app to one's AI of choice.
        user43928 20d ago
        Yes, and a lot of QA testing.
        rmast 20d ago
        A conundrum I see is that once someone releases a “solution” to a problem, it becomes much easier for someone else to come up with prompts to have AI make a clone of that solution. Basically, the moat for many products is disappearing, and it would be relatively cheap for someone to make a clone that undercuts the cost of the first to market. The original product is charging $2? Cool, the clone will cost $1 - maybe it’s not as good due to less QA, but consumers will see the lower price and buy it.
        perching_aix 20d ago
        That's the thing. The moment you publish, the design you spent 100s of hours on also becomes public, at which point it becomes entirely replicable with little to no recourse. Hence the theme of this entire thread: a devaluement spiral.
        lelanthran 20d ago
        > I spent hundreds of hours on this, so there is still some friction. I'm afraid your hundreds of hours of prompting will reduce to "clone this product, here are 200 screenshots of every screen." I don't understand why people aren't getting this: there is no skill in prompting! The CC leak literally showed Anthropic engineers developing Claude with broken half-english prompts like "gud, now make better".
    - libria 20d ago
      Ignore the "dropbox-in-a-weekend" trolls, they're just nosy. Your project sounds interesting, good luck.
  - mattgreenrocks 20d ago
    He's not. That's how things will be from now on. Because there's plenty of hacks who think prompting will make them millions if they could just find that one idea, yet aren't willing to do the work to find, vet, build, and iterate.
- Tade0 20d ago
  > I'm not going to share exact details about my paid app You might not be aware of this, but you've answered the question - just indirectly.
cachvico 20d ago
Vice City was released nearly 25 years ago! Also it's a game, so it's not really an apples-to-apples comparison. If you count the unique 'features' (or systems) of Vice City, you might find it's a comparable count to the number of features of a medium-sized mobile app.
- lacedeconstruct 20d ago
  You are joking right ? renderer, audio, math, physics, animation, AI, asset streaming,.... in addition to the gameplay itself, and you compare it to a medium-sized mobile app ???
  - NSUserDefaults 20d ago
    Apps usually have tons of boilerplate, so pure LoC may be similar. But in density, no contest. I recently dug up an old objc app of mine and was shocked how few lines it took to send a REST request, parse and process it. Nowadays it is split into multiple files, usecases, repositories, protocols to accomplish the same. All in the name of testability or architectural “correctness”. Write that in a game and you’re fired because it kills performance.
    - herpdyderp 20d ago
      There's a different bar for maintenance though. Many games exist in a single point in time, they ship and are done, whereas the goal with SaaS is to support the code forever.
      - NSUserDefaults 20d ago
        Maintenance, sure, but also: games have one chance to be good, and that is at release. With a multi-year development cycle, what we get at release (of the good ones) is like a version 4 or 5 of an app. Everything is connected and changed (and thus maintained) over the years.
- raincole 20d ago

user43928 20d ago

I'm not going to share exact details about my paid app, but you could think media management, with a lot of extra features, an in-app browser with custom controls, and multiple AI powered features with on device processing.

SoftTalker 20d ago
You're selling an app, but don't want to share any details, or even name it? Call me suspicious.
- user43928 20d ago
  I said I'm hoping to complete it this month and I already shared some details. Should I post my market and keyword research too, here on this site for software developers and entrepreneurs?
  - lelanthran 20d ago
    It doesn't matter when you post it; some kid with a $200 claude sub (or cheaper) is going to clone it for far cheaper than you, and sell it for far cheaper than you. There's no friction to what you produced, so why do you think that you won't have 100s of clones, all cheaper? We're now in a market for lemons as far as software goes.
    - user43928 20d ago
      I spent hundreds of hours on this, so there is still some friction. If I told you the exact market and use case, I'd still have a decent head start, but indeed, someone without a job could invest more time than I do. People in a cheaper location can work for far cheaper than I can afford to. With head start I don't meant that the idea is so novel that I need to keep it a secret. However, I believe that if there is an established app that does the same thing, and your app cannot beat it on quality, it will be hard to attract users.
      - bakugo 20d ago
        Hundreds of hours doing what? If you're not reviewing the code, then what are you doing, just planning features? Because that would be trivial to copy in a fraction of the time by just feeding screenshots of your app to one's AI of choice.
        user43928 20d ago
        Yes, and a lot of QA testing.
      - rmast 20d ago
        A conundrum I see is that once someone releases a “solution” to a problem, it becomes much easier for someone else to come up with prompts to have AI make a clone of that solution. Basically, the moat for many products is disappearing, and it would be relatively cheap for someone to make a clone that undercuts the cost of the first to market. The original product is charging $2? Cool, the clone will cost $1 - maybe it’s not as good due to less QA, but consumers will see the lower price and buy it.
      - perching_aix 20d ago
        That's the thing. The moment you publish, the design you spent 100s of hours on also becomes public, at which point it becomes entirely replicable with little to no recourse. Hence the theme of this entire thread: a devaluement spiral.
      - lelanthran 20d ago
        > I spent hundreds of hours on this, so there is still some friction. I'm afraid your hundreds of hours of prompting will reduce to "clone this product, here are 200 screenshots of every screen." I don't understand why people aren't getting this: there is no skill in prompting! The CC leak literally showed Anthropic engineers developing Claude with broken half-english prompts like "gud, now make better".
  - libria 20d ago
    Ignore the "dropbox-in-a-weekend" trolls, they're just nosy. Your project sounds interesting, good luck.
- mattgreenrocks 20d ago
  He's not. That's how things will be from now on. Because there's plenty of hacks who think prompting will make them millions if they could just find that one idea, yet aren't willing to do the work to find, vet, build, and iterate.
Tade0 20d ago
> I'm not going to share exact details about my paid app You might not be aware of this, but you've answered the question - just indirectly.

cachvico 20d ago

Vice City was released nearly 25 years ago! Also it's a game, so it's not really an apples-to-apples comparison. If you count the unique 'features' (or systems) of Vice City, you might find it's a comparable count to the number of features of a medium-sized mobile app.

lacedeconstruct 20d ago
You are joking right ? renderer, audio, math, physics, animation, AI, asset streaming,.... in addition to the gameplay itself, and you compare it to a medium-sized mobile app ???
- NSUserDefaults 20d ago
  Apps usually have tons of boilerplate, so pure LoC may be similar. But in density, no contest. I recently dug up an old objc app of mine and was shocked how few lines it took to send a REST request, parse and process it. Nowadays it is split into multiple files, usecases, repositories, protocols to accomplish the same. All in the name of testability or architectural “correctness”. Write that in a game and you’re fired because it kills performance.
  - herpdyderp 20d ago
    There's a different bar for maintenance though. Many games exist in a single point in time, they ship and are done, whereas the goal with SaaS is to support the code forever.
    - NSUserDefaults 20d ago
      Maintenance, sure, but also: games have one chance to be good, and that is at release. With a multi-year development cycle, what we get at release (of the good ones) is like a version 4 or 5 of an app. Everything is connected and changed (and thus maintained) over the years.
raincole 20d ago