Show HN: Vanilla JavaScript refinery simulator built to explain job to my kids

Re:Show HN: Vanilla JavaScript refinery simulator built to e... by idiotsecant on Wednesday March 11, 2026 @03:04PM (#47339767)

This is a great example of the kind of 'good enough' software that LLMs enable. Before LLMs existed you'd either hire someone to do this an exorbitant cost or you'd pick up a second full time job learning the nessessary skills.

This software doesn't need to be massive scaled, hyperperformant, and absolutely bug free. It just needs to do its job well enough, which it does.

I am also a (non-software) engineer and although I can write software (poorly) I have also used these tools to do some things that previously just wouldn't have gotten done.

We still need people to do Serious Software but for millions of little applications like this LLMs are a game changer.

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Re:Show HN: Vanilla JavaScript refinery simulator built to e... by fuelingcurious on Wednesday March 11, 2026 @03:58PM (#47340482)

Thank you for the support! I tell my team this all the time, there’s no point in building systems that we rely on to be perfect to integrate LLMs, but we can use them to low risk workflows that otherwise would never get coding/automation support.

It’s really changed the way I work from opening up the ability to write deterministic code, but I’ve yet to see many instances that we could tolerate a “in-the-loop” LLM yet.

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