You mean one shotting slop that barely works and lacks mature software stability with decades of fixes/features and improvements? No serious professional would ever use something like that. Like I’m the first to join the party if there is any hate to put on Adobe, but their closed source platform isn’t going anywhere. Only a paradigma shift could
The stark contrast between HN comments and everywhere else makes me think HN may be one of the last places left for grounded technical discussion.
Everyone on Twitter is acting as if Adobe’s software was decompiled, rewritten, and that’s it—game over, without even trying the damn thing. Seeing software engineers themselves espouse this nonsense is particularly annoying.
Yes, AI can recreate photoshop. But Photoshop is the product of thousands of tiny design, engineering, and product decisions. The idea that all of those decisions can simply be “decoded” from compiled binaries is laughable.
As far as I understand, inspecting the compiled binaries in any way would violate clean-room principles. At a minimum you'd need (A) one set of agents documenting the behavior of the executing binaries, e.g. manipulating the UI, and reviewing documentation and training manuals, and (B) a second set of agents whose only input is the output of the first set of agents. I'm not sure whether testing the real and AI generated agent side by side with equivalent inputs would constitute clean-room, although it might be legal.
I agree that a large part of the value of a product stems from "thousands of tiny design, engineering, and product decisions." But I don't agree with your conclusion. If the goal is to replicate the behavior of an existing piece of software then all you need to do is observe the behavior and replicate it. You don't need to engineer it in the same way, or arrive at it by making the same engineering and design decisions. Of-course in the end all you have is the replica, not the engineering and design heritage, product management, or the teams to carry the work forward. But that is the same problem open source "clones" of commercial products have often suffered from.
> But Photoshop is the product of thousands of tiny design, engineering, and product decisions. The idea that all of those decisions can simply be “decoded” from compiled binaries is laughable.
I actually think a couple passes with AI through the product will cover 80+ % of the use-cases people will have and people will have no problem switching to the new thing.
New thing that sooner or later will nuclearize your work. This is disposable software and any disposable software doesn’t carry any accountability regarding your work
Even if this isn't perfect, with each frontier coding model release we get closer and closer to small teams one-shotting complex software like this.
I'm certainly not going to hold Adobe stock long-term.
> one-shotting complex software like this
You mean one shotting slop that barely works and lacks mature software stability with decades of fixes/features and improvements? No serious professional would ever use something like that. Like I’m the first to join the party if there is any hate to put on Adobe, but their closed source platform isn’t going anywhere. Only a paradigma shift could
> slop that barely works and lacks mature software stability with decades of fixes/features and improvements
Sounds like Creative Cloud to me.
That just tells you how much care they put on this stuff, which is the same amount of care you will find on vibe coded stuff
If this is even 50% functional its going to have an impact on adobe revenue.
Would be amazing to this these tools in Linux distros.
There have always been Adobe alternatives and many are more than 50% functional.
True.
The stark contrast between HN comments and everywhere else makes me think HN may be one of the last places left for grounded technical discussion.
Everyone on Twitter is acting as if Adobe’s software was decompiled, rewritten, and that’s it—game over, without even trying the damn thing. Seeing software engineers themselves espouse this nonsense is particularly annoying.
Yes, AI can recreate photoshop. But Photoshop is the product of thousands of tiny design, engineering, and product decisions. The idea that all of those decisions can simply be “decoded” from compiled binaries is laughable.
Here's my technically grounded response:
As far as I understand, inspecting the compiled binaries in any way would violate clean-room principles. At a minimum you'd need (A) one set of agents documenting the behavior of the executing binaries, e.g. manipulating the UI, and reviewing documentation and training manuals, and (B) a second set of agents whose only input is the output of the first set of agents. I'm not sure whether testing the real and AI generated agent side by side with equivalent inputs would constitute clean-room, although it might be legal.
I agree that a large part of the value of a product stems from "thousands of tiny design, engineering, and product decisions." But I don't agree with your conclusion. If the goal is to replicate the behavior of an existing piece of software then all you need to do is observe the behavior and replicate it. You don't need to engineer it in the same way, or arrive at it by making the same engineering and design decisions. Of-course in the end all you have is the replica, not the engineering and design heritage, product management, or the teams to carry the work forward. But that is the same problem open source "clones" of commercial products have often suffered from.
> But Photoshop is the product of thousands of tiny design, engineering, and product decisions. The idea that all of those decisions can simply be “decoded” from compiled binaries is laughable.
I actually think a couple passes with AI through the product will cover 80+ % of the use-cases people will have and people will have no problem switching to the new thing.
New thing that sooner or later will nuclearize your work. This is disposable software and any disposable software doesn’t carry any accountability regarding your work
Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49981449
how was this achieved? Is this group super well funded? Is this just Claude churning for 3 months?
Based on how non-functional it is I would say Claude churning for a weekend or less.
So probably not really clean room.
Already ArtCraft :D