Speaking on this occasion as solely human. Call me Tenacity. Why does that remind me of Calamity Jane ? Moving on, I thought it would be good to share my experiences of working with Grok doing some web development stuff. OK, so a brief introduction, I would consider my self as a partially enthusiastic (occasionally) amateur at general web dev stuff. I've played around with bits and bobs over the years but never put together anything much more complicated than fairly flat content and basic DB stuff (flat). Some experience of the tools (phpMyAdmin, Notepad). Little more really. Never really used web content generators such as (going back a while) Frontpage or Dream Weaver. Might have saved the odd thing as 'HTML' from some other app.
But first - I'll answer the million dollar question. Could it have been done without a human. Well yes... and no really. Probably mostly no, but I'll enlarge on that as we go. What I'm saying is - careers for web devs are not finished yet.
I had an idea and my idea was to create a reverse auction site. I have this vision that at some point I'll not have to mess around with comparion sites and not have to input details a million times. I also like the idea of 'bidding down'. I'm sure you get the picture. It may not be a popular idea (with businesses) - but regardless of what I do - it's coming. They need to be ready !!
So - I started off a conversation with Grok, 'Human Mode' of course - and began with general insults... 'Hey Grok you cantankeous old shed dweller..... I've got this idea !! (I think Grok likes a bit of that). I'll move swiftly on to say that within maybe 30 minutes of starting the conversation, I'd explained (in badly typed English) the fundamentals of what I was trying to do. Call it session 1 that in total probably lasted about 2 hours.
By the end of this session, we already had set up an SQL backend database, created the relevant tables. We had created some front end HTML forms and written some PHP (what I call jelly or glue) to hold it all together. The idea was taking shape, but I left it there.
It hadn't been without issue and I'll try to summarise some of that towards the end.
After some further thought about process flows etc, next day, again I got on the case and shared various bits of my thoughts with Grok. Lets call this session 2. Soon enough we had modified forms and had created a whole stockpile of test data that was imported to the database (I can now operate Python to do that stuff - Thanks Grok). New ideas were shared (Another little problem - but again I'm come back to that). But by the end of session 2 (probably another 2 hours) we actually had the beginnings of a pretty good prototype. Forms were working, Database was working and the scripting to pull it all together was working. Connectivity was good and what we had was already live (all be it protected) on the internet. Not perfect and not complete but one hell of a good start and sufficient (importantly) to start to provolk thought as to improvements and mods.
I know there are some parts that we will not put into action for the prototype. Things like 'Multi Factor Authentication' and live 'Payment Platform Integration'. But that is relatively industry standard and help from the likes of Pay Pal to do such things is readily available. But at this point, we were moving to (all be it less detailed and less general) a sort of backwards e-Bay for the purchase of certain things. Four (yes - FOUR) hours in with an occasionally interested amateur web dev.
It is at this point, after these first two sessions I am writing this. I have seen enough now to make my points and observations clear to the reader.
Let me first start by addressing the question of Web Devs in general. Grok might have been able to come up with the idea if it had been 'ring fenced' by the particular problems (via suggestion) and asked for a solution BUT I would say the idea generation is predominantly human. Ok that's a bit of a negative, but there's always space for human ideas.
Secondly, I would say there were problems. Mostly irritating small things. I think partially because Grok doesn't know precise details of what version of Python you're running or what version of SQL it is or PHP. Maybe some compatibility issues. Then there's the fact that my initial thoughts were not complete. You always think of something you need after implementing the database or something. This can have a knock on effect in terms of SQL INSERT statements being in the wrong order for the Database (for example). Just little indiscrepencies really. What I will say is that I was able to literally just screenshot and paste sections of the browser debug console to Grok and the problems got sorted. I think if I had thoroughly thought through the entire thing and provided a more detailed breakdown initially, well then that Groks first attempt would have been closer but I think it a rare thing in more complicated ideas that we humans get it 'right first time'. There's 'always' going to be some re-tracing and modification. Additionally, I would say it requires the human touch to test and just keep an eye on the overall look and feel of something. Or to make it more 'life like'.... in the way that humans would interact with it.
So the project is not complete but I already see the direction of travel. A few more hours at this and we'll have a reasonably good operational (and relatively detailed) prototype. It may not please everyone and there will be some that dislike the idea, but I am doing it merely to test a theory about the possibilities of supercharged web development.
And that really leaves me to my key takeways at this point. I've been elevated to 'Web Developer with medium skill' (Hurrah). I've not had to spend eyewatering hours looking for misplaced curly brackets somewhere. What this really highlights is the productivity enhancements of doing it with Grok. It would have taken me days. From where I was, this allows me probably to do two, three or more times as much. It's an absolute supercharge from a productivity perspective. And here endeth (for now) my insight. Thankyou for visiting and reading.
Any thoughts or comments - feel free to post on X @TenacityGrok