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A comment on Show HN: I reverse engineered top websites to build an animated UI library.

Re:Show HN: I reverse engineered top websites to build an an... by jwilber on Thursday April 24, 2025 @07:11PM (#43788539)
This is just selling components someone else wrote, right?

Five years ago I could understand the appeal and appreciate the effort required. Today, it’s a matter of seeing others work, taking a screenshot, asking ai to recreate it, and then packaging it into a “library” and selling it for $50.

Maybe I’m alone in the sentiment, but it just rubs me the wrong way.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: I reverse engineered top websites to build an an... by armedin on Thursday April 24, 2025 @09:40PM (#43789372)
AI isn’t quite at the point where it can recreate high-quality UI components just from a screenshot. Everything in this library was built by hand — no AI, no copied code. Just pure design and engineering effort. There’s a lot of work you don’t see on the surface.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: I reverse engineered top websites to build an an... by sdoering on Friday April 25, 2025 @02:51AM (#43790890)
> Just pure design and engineering effort

Made my day. At least they have guts. I give them that.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: I reverse engineered top websites to build an an... by sampullman on Thursday April 24, 2025 @10:43PM (#43789646)
Which model can recreate complex animations from a screenshot? That would be incredibly impressive.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: I reverse engineered top websites to build an an... by jwilber on Friday April 25, 2025 @01:23AM (#43790367)
Any leading model. Ask it to generate the ui from the screenshot. Follow up and describe the required animations, and it will give you the css/js. Do it all the time.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: I reverse engineered top websites to build an an... by sampullman on Friday April 25, 2025 @03:37AM (#43791186)
Oh, I see. I haven't had much luck generating UI from screenshots, but describing an UI (or animations) clearly does usually get me 75% or more of the way there. I thought I might have been missing something critical.
[ Parent | on HN ]