I just read about a blind person vibe-coding a new email client for Windows.
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On the one hand, it's good that blind people are taking initiative to solve our own problems, rather than begging big tech companies and/or under-resourced open-source projects to give us what we need.
On the other hand, I still believe that relying heavily on an LLM to generate large volumes of code is dangerous, and that we don't fully understand the pitfalls.
Check out what Ron Pressler wrote about Anthropic's PR stunt of having agents build a C compiler. He looked at the actual results, not just the hype. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48170244
> Today's models are not yet capable enough to build non-trivial production software without close and careful human supervision, even with perfect specs and perfect tests. Without a perfect spec and a perfect human-written test suite the task is even harder.
An email client falls in that latter category.
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On the one hand, it's good that blind people are taking initiative to solve our own problems, rather than begging big tech companies and/or under-resourced open-source projects to give us what we need.
On the other hand, I still believe that relying heavily on an LLM to generate large volumes of code is dangerous, and that we don't fully understand the pitfalls.
@matt I think this is true of vibe coding or AI in general. That said, vibe coding has reduced the friction for many of having to struggle with some of the complexities of less than accessible code writing experiences while trying to learn.
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@matt I think this is true of vibe coding or AI in general. That said, vibe coding has reduced the friction for many of having to struggle with some of the complexities of less than accessible code writing experiences while trying to learn.
@kellylford @matt Also I think it somewhat depends on what you're trying to do. I think it's very important to understand the concepts behind programming, and if code is given to you, you should be able to read and understand what is going on. That being said, an LLM used in moderation, e.g. auto complete, maybe giving it a few lines of code to look at and fix potential problems, etc., I don't see an issue with that. I agree that vibe coding can definitely get you into trouble, especially if you're working on big architectural stuff or anything involving the web.
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@matt use OE classic. it's an email client that almost exactly mirrors outlook express but has been designed to work with modern, secure email accounts
@sparksexist @matt When I last looked at OE Classic, it was still using an outdated HTML rendering engine from the Internet Explorer era which made it a non-starter for me.
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@matt vibe coded or hand coded, all that matters is it works, especially for the person who wanted it. I never understood the problem with how a person arrives at a working solution. I mean who would complain about taking a car to get to a shop that's 3 miles away, sure you could walk there, the weird thing here is "people piling on them" If the code works and does what is requested, who cares where it comes from. Vibe coding is not as simple as "Write me an accessible email client." For quality there's still testing, spec design, more testing, redesign, etc. Vibe coding done correctly is still a lot of work. I say congrats to this person for taking the initiative and solving not only their problem but the same problem for anyone else smart enough to use the working code whether written by machine or man, who cares?
@storm @matt People use email clients to access a lot of confidential information, or their workplace has specific email security requirements, or... the list of reasons that email security matters goes on and on.
The problem with a vibe coded client is that the author did not write, and we can't assume they have read and understood, every character of the code to avoid security issues.
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@VE3RWJ I believe I'm done now. I was DM'ing with this person, and as he told me about all of his experience and contributions, I realized that I didn't present him in nearly a positive enough light.
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@storm @matt People use email clients to access a lot of confidential information, or their workplace has specific email security requirements, or... the list of reasons that email security matters goes on and on.
The problem with a vibe coded client is that the author did not write, and we can't assume they have read and understood, every character of the code to avoid security issues.
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@kellylford @matt Also I think it somewhat depends on what you're trying to do. I think it's very important to understand the concepts behind programming, and if code is given to you, you should be able to read and understand what is going on. That being said, an LLM used in moderation, e.g. auto complete, maybe giving it a few lines of code to look at and fix potential problems, etc., I don't see an issue with that. I agree that vibe coding can definitely get you into trouble, especially if you're working on big architectural stuff or anything involving the web.
@ZBennoui @kellylford @matt The big thing is that for decades, we've essentially been the beggars, not the choosers. Even in #openSource, often when you ask for an #accessibility enhancement you either get a "no, too hard" or "submit PR and then maybe lmao". With that pushback it makes sense that people have decided they've had enough of not being considered important enough and just making a tool yourself. Even well-established projects like #microsoft #windows, #apple #MacOS etc. have been steadily backsliding over the last decade so what's a person to do?
It absolutely means there's likely a lot of tools out there that may very well be doing things insecurely or inefficiently, and the developer might not even know. So now it becomes a responsibility question: do we blame the dev, who isn't a dev, for doing dev wrong, or the user for trusting what they feel is now their only/best option? THis is where accessibility negligence has taken us. -
@storm @matt People use email clients to access a lot of confidential information, or their workplace has specific email security requirements, or... the list of reasons that email security matters goes on and on.
The problem with a vibe coded client is that the author did not write, and we can't assume they have read and understood, every character of the code to avoid security issues.
@jscholes @storm @matt One of the reasons I am going to bash my head against a brick wall with the new Outlook is I don't think I will ever be able to use anything else at work other than the new Outlook or a terible webmail alternative. I think that is worth keeping in mind for blind people seeking employment and needing to know and have current experience with the modern software from day one.
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@jscholes @jcsteh @modulux @Scott @matt Well, given I'm the person talked about on part of this for the email app, one point of clarification. Sure I'm using vibe coding to write my Quickmail app but the guts of the email handling are coming from the MailKit library. My research says this is widely respected in the development community and pretty much the go to library for handling email in an app. I'm focusing on the user experience and accessibility.
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@VE3RWJ I believe I'm done now. I was DM'ing with this person, and as he told me about all of his experience and contributions, I realized that I didn't present him in nearly a positive enough light.
@matt Ok, and I agree with you. It is very sad we have to start making our own software to come up with fully accessible solutions.
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@jscholes @jcsteh @modulux @Scott @matt Well, given I'm the person talked about on part of this for the email app, one point of clarification. Sure I'm using vibe coding to write my Quickmail app but the guts of the email handling are coming from the MailKit library. My research says this is widely respected in the development community and pretty much the go to library for handling email in an app. I'm focusing on the user experience and accessibility.
@kellylford Hey, good to hear that you've chosen an established library. are you still using WPF for the UI? That kinda turned me off when I took it for a quick spin. Felt like Win32 would be faster and closer to what a lot of folks feel like they're missing. Just a thought. @jscholes @jcsteh @modulux @matt
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@jscholes @jcsteh @modulux @Scott @matt Well, given I'm the person talked about on part of this for the email app, one point of clarification. Sure I'm using vibe coding to write my Quickmail app but the guts of the email handling are coming from the MailKit library. My research says this is widely respected in the development community and pretty much the go to library for handling email in an app. I'm focusing on the user experience and accessibility.
@kellylford @jcsteh @modulux @Scott @matt Appreciate the explanation but at least for me, it doesn't significantly change the risk profile. The data ends up having to move in and out of MailKit to drive and be driven by the UI, and even a well-respected library is unlikely to prevent an LLM from doing something undesirable.
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@ZBennoui @kellylford @matt The big thing is that for decades, we've essentially been the beggars, not the choosers. Even in #openSource, often when you ask for an #accessibility enhancement you either get a "no, too hard" or "submit PR and then maybe lmao". With that pushback it makes sense that people have decided they've had enough of not being considered important enough and just making a tool yourself. Even well-established projects like #microsoft #windows, #apple #MacOS etc. have been steadily backsliding over the last decade so what's a person to do?
It absolutely means there's likely a lot of tools out there that may very well be doing things insecurely or inefficiently, and the developer might not even know. So now it becomes a responsibility question: do we blame the dev, who isn't a dev, for doing dev wrong, or the user for trusting what they feel is now their only/best option? THis is where accessibility negligence has taken us.@zersiax @ZBennoui @matt I wrote about one solution for the larger problem, although I know it is unlikely to gain any traction. https://theideaplace.net/from-word-fluff-to-real-impact-achieving-specific-measurable-and-accountable-accessibility/. All I can say is that I'm using what I believe is a reliable library for the mail handing in my app called MailKit. Before I do a project, I do some research about what's out there.
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I just read about a blind person vibe-coding a new email client for Windows. Not linking because I don't want people to pile onto this person, who is a respected member of the blind community and long-time accessibility advocate, though not a professional programmer as far as I know. Instead, I want to point out how badly the commercial software industry, particularly Microsoft in this case, has failed us such that an individual feels the need to do this. Don't know what to do instead though.
@matt yeah, ran into another case of this recently where one of the developers of Factorio access was commenting on my policy to reduce LLM usage in Rust with how LLMs have been used to create accessibility mods for all games, including the mods they make for Factorio
my comment is just, it's garbage that accessibility is so shit people have to do this, but:
a. I'll give a pass to blind folks who choose to use whatever tools are available to them to make the situation more workable
b. I don't give a pass to everyone else to make shit tools for blind folks using LLMs
c. we should be making better tools so folks don't feel like LLMs are the best option -
@storm @matt People use email clients to access a lot of confidential information, or their workplace has specific email security requirements, or... the list of reasons that email security matters goes on and on.
The problem with a vibe coded client is that the author did not write, and we can't assume they have read and understood, every character of the code to avoid security issues.
@jscholes @TheQuinbox @storm @matt Just because you write every semicolon and bracket of a program, doesn't mean you understand everything either. Nor does it make it completely immune from security issues.
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@jscholes @TheQuinbox @storm @matt Just because you write every semicolon and bracket of a program, doesn't mean you understand everything either. Nor does it make it completely immune from security issues.
@KyleBorah @jscholes @storm @matt Much more so than if you wrote none of it, though. Of course, no one is amune from security issues.
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@zersiax @ZBennoui @matt I wrote about one solution for the larger problem, although I know it is unlikely to gain any traction. https://theideaplace.net/from-word-fluff-to-real-impact-achieving-specific-measurable-and-accountable-accessibility/. All I can say is that I'm using what I believe is a reliable library for the mail handing in my app called MailKit. Before I do a project, I do some research about what's out there.
@kellylford @ZBennoui @matt guessing the main concern with an email app would be, what happens with the user credentials. Where are they stored, are they encrypted, are they ever shared over the web, etc.
Email in general I'd say is a pretty solved problem but security issues are easy to introduce by accident
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@jscholes @TheQuinbox @storm @matt Just because you write every semicolon and bracket of a program, doesn't mean you understand everything either. Nor does it make it completely immune from security issues.
@KyleBorah You're right. Nor are the world's most well-audited technology systems immune from social engineering. Life is about determining acceptable risk, not eliminating it completely. @TheQuinbox @storm @matt
