I visit once/twice a week and only find topics related to Paid Addons..
Nothing much valuable for Xenforo sometimes
So much AI, so many add-ons... and so many bugs
- Thread starter PhineasD
- Start date
Nothing much valuable for Xenforo sometimes
I can usually find my way, sometimes fumble my way, around XF. I am no pro at it, and certainly not any kind of dev. I am not.
But as time goes on I read all about AI and coding and everyone's doing it.
So yeah, I can try, right?
My attempt at a simple add-on generated by claude to assist in making one of my template edits in an addon instead. I started with a very basic ask to build an installable/uninstallable add-on (using more text of course) that didnt do anything except make a page and a navtab.
Well, thank god for XF support as my shot at greatness frapped part of the ACP addon manager and I could not recover.
So yeah, I should try, right?
Without knowledge or experience?
Right?
jm2c
But as time goes on I read all about AI and coding and everyone's doing it.
So yeah, I can try, right?
My attempt at a simple add-on generated by claude to assist in making one of my template edits in an addon instead. I started with a very basic ask to build an installable/uninstallable add-on (using more text of course) that didnt do anything except make a page and a navtab.
Well, thank god for XF support as my shot at greatness frapped part of the ACP addon manager and I could not recover.
So yeah, I should try, right?
Without knowledge or experience?
Right?
jm2cThe ones you call idiots maybe smarter than YOU, with AI.
the adults were talking, not sure why you're interrupting.While I am fine with people using AI support when coding and also fine with people using AI to code add ons for their personal use I am - as many in this thread - critical about people publishing AI coded add ons where they lack the abilities to understand the code they are publishing. I was initially interested in your thread about AI coding. In the meantime, given your attitude and behavior, I can safely say I'd never install any add on that you have coded, even if it was free and I was in desperate need and it was the only one available. You don't do your agenda a favor with your behavior. I don't think the way you have been attacked by some in your thread initially was fair, but the way you reacted there and here shows pretty well that the distrust against plain AI coders seems more than justified.
Right, Mr. Know-It-All, who gets elated by belittling people on public forums.
Thanks for the condescension; I'll be sure to check my age at the door next time you guys start your daily circle jerk.
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I don't make add-ons; I make stuff for myself.
Seems like people enjoy attacking me; that's fine. I am a man of steel; I can live with that.
Dude - add those type of people to your ignore list.
All they're interested in doing is derailing threads and making more work for @Slavik and the rest of the staff on here.
Great, advice received with thanks.
Pretty self-righteous statement. If you behave in real life as aggressive as you behave here I assume you don't get invited to many parties.
You're welcome !
That's right, I am aggressive for being called an idiot.
Ah yes, the classic "you must be fun at parties" ad hominem. Truly a masterclass in original thought.
Well to be fair: The issue does exist on the other side as well: Reviews are not worth to much (if anything at all) as most forum admins may be able to judge on if an add on looks nice or does what it says it would to but lack the skills to judge on the code quality and/or identify the dirty little corners and shortcuts an add on dev may or may not have taken.And it just so happens that a user who registered in 2026 has given 5-star reviews to several of their add-ons...
Either we start figuring out how to filter professional developers' add-ons from the 100% AI or...
We also start to see that people using add ons and having difficulties start to ask AI about it and the AI then gives wrong statements or ill led advice which then leads support calls/postings with extra work for add on devs that are based on the bs that AI provided the user with and convinced him of. Poor devs then have to explain that the AI was wrong (again) and clear out the mess that the AI provided as "knowledge".
Hi @PhineasD - I saw you had "liked" my ForumBot addon, so I'm curious if you tested it (it won't actually function without a license key), but I'd love any feedback if you did. You say you're interested in thoughts; here are mine, as a "vibe coding" addon dev (btw this is written by me, not run through AI)
About me: 30+ year career in tech as product manager. I've built and shipped products and features to millions of customers. I've written a few lines of code on my own that shipped to production in my career, but 99.99% of the code for the products I built were coded by developers. I'm not sure how I fit in your "confidence" criteria, but for me, something like Claude Code CLI (and now Grok Build) fits my needs exactly. I know how to define features, iterate, test, trial, deploy, support.
My TONMO website launched in 2000 (26 years ago) and I've owned the full stack. Hand-coded it at first (simple HTML/CSS), then started integrating components. Platform integration isn't coding, so again, I don't regard myself a dev.
About the addon: it's my first one, built using Claude Code CLI and XAMPP locally to shake it out and test. I've done several dot releases, but I'm not dealing with regressions, just working through my backlog to add more features, along with some bug fixes that I had previously missed (I regard these as my responsibility, not Claude's).
My process:
- once built, test locally via XAMPP
- once functional and tested, install on TONMO
- once it shakes out there, upload to XF Resources.
The fact that I'm on my 11th iteration is not a result of me not knowing what I'm doing (per se), although I'm sure that's the case with many addons, and I don't blame anyone for trying. It's incredibly empowering to have code generated for you based on your ideas alone, without having to engage an actual dev resource.
But coding is not the only required skill to create a functional, stable solution. If you've never dealt with customers, don't know how product lifecycles work, etc., you're probably producing AI slop. I feel very good that ForumBot is not AI slop. Not everything produced using AI is AI slop, obviously (otherwise, we certainly ARE in a bubble). No, at least in my case, it's a productivity boon.
I feel great about the product I've built for TONMO - it's amazing, and members are using it exactly as designed. I think it's where forums need to go, in fact. Can't ignore AI.
And that in a nutshell is the fact.
It is here and that is the choice.
Remember when assembly is where dev's lived? And then it moved on to CP/M and DOS, etc. And then it went further to other newer higher level languages, eventually ending up here where the new kid on the block is AI.
My point is, and I am not trying to stir this hornets nest here, is that higher level tools will always come along. And its a tool. Thats it.
In a few years something new and amazing will come along where you just have to think of a program to dev and its done. Or something such.
But we should not disregard dedicated true developers for their opinions. They are correct. At this moment in time.
This exactly. We are developing a new inhouse system at work and while we will be using Cursor and AI, a lot of the real work is in the business analysis, requirements gathering, and developing the framework. The AI will be the coder, but my product manager, analysts, and some software engineers from our parent company will be doing a lot of intensive work around that to make sure we get the system we need and that it works the way we want.
Why not?
That is a mismash of unrelated buzzwords.
You're not making a case for your point. Rather, comparing tools, OS platforms and programming languages; three differnt things. Your flawed example is like saying transportation evolved from walking, to asphalt, to Ford dealerships, and now to GPS.
Logical examples of progression would be:
CP/M -> MS-DOS -> Windows launched from MS-DOS -> Windows NT
Machine language -> assembly language -> C -> C++ (or other high level languages)
Debuggers and basic editors -> early IDEs -> modern IDEs with tools like refactoring and more -> AI assisted programming -> integration of AI assisted programming into IDEs
Programmers aren't saying AI isn't a tool that they can't put to good use. They are saying they can do a better job with tools than those who aren't programmers. They, at least, can validate the code, do proper security and other audits, consider outlyer cases a non-developer wouldn't, etc. and actually understand the underlying output.
If I'm taking my car to get repaired, I'm taking it to an expert who understands all the systems in a car, how to work on them, and uses the proper tools. Not to a guy who has the tools, but is reading a procedure from a manual because he has no clue how everything works (beyond theory).
Right, you can. But compared to a traditional human-only forum, an AI-enabled forum does a far better job of amalgamating and contextualizing information, which is exactly what forum-goers are looking for. When done well, AI will level-up the knowledge of your community members, leading to enhanced discourse, and arguably, more things to talk about, in more interesting ways, and in ways that are more attuned to your forums' mission, culture, objectives, what-have-you. Everyone here created a forum for a reason, AI is a tool which can greatly help achieve those goals... I'd be interested in any examples to the contrary.
Stating the obvious here, but as forum owners, we are all sitting on a trove of unique information, context, culture, and perspective that AI can't solve for on its own, even if it scrapes the content (at least not currently). Yet, today's AI can synthesize that information better than any technology we've ever seen.
As forum owners, we can guide it, shape it, and have it serve our community members in a way that is congruent with our objectives. I think massive change to how we communicate is RIGHT around the corner; better to ride that wave (embrace it) than to get slammed and overcome by it (ignore it).
I'll never forget a conversation I had in the late 90's with someone who worked for broadcast news; he told me the Internet was a fad and as an information distributor, it would never be able to replace the likes of "prestigious" institutions like CBS, The New York Times, and other such garbage.
It's amazing how similar things are today to the kinds of conversations people were having about the Internet at that time.