this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2026
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Clean room implementation would be taking the spec, API calls, etc. & writing the code that implements them from scratch. This is de-compiling existing code & converting it to another programming language. Same source routines in another language.
It's like taking a book written in Chinese, translating it to English, and calling it your own.
Bullshit.
Which they did.
This is not a decomp. They gave the tool all of the available specs, and the expected behavior, and let it run. They had a suite of test PSD files but no Adobe software.
Please explain to these other commenters how and why that counts.
May I ask where this is documented? I tried searching, but there's just too many results to parse, and/or my Google-fu is failing me.
I find it hard to believe near full feature parity could be achieved in under a month for multiple major apps even for an experienced dev using AI. It's a bit hard to buy.
This project is weeks old. I dunno what detailed writeup you expect to exist. But the project's Github page says: "Implemented from public specs and observed behaviour only. No proprietary code, shaders or assets."
There's no secret sauce in Photoshop. Image editors have been done. Every individual feature is a tractable problem. You can now buy your way out of those, in bulk.
Which brings us full circle to not original code, but I get that's par for the course with AI. However, I can't see completing all those apps - with full compatibility - in that time span with nothing but documented specs (especially nowadays when full documentation has long become an afterthought that never becomes reality far too often).
Sorry, not buying that there wasn't decompiling involved. Dude needs to prove his "work" by releasing every detail of how he accomplished it so others can replicate it before I'll eat my words. And he needs to do so now - so current tools, hardware, etc can be validated by Joe Public.
Argumentum ad nuh uh is somehow worse than all the sea lions saying your definition wouldn't count even if you believed it.
I didn't say anything of the sort. We all know AI code isn't original, and for the purposes of this discussion, that's fine.
My issue is the idea that he's replicated virtually every last detail of several major closed-source apps simultaneously in under a month using documented specs alone without "cheating" by using their code in some manner. Plain and simple. Prove me wrong, and I'll issue a mea culpa.
Yes you plainly did. "Sorry, not buying that" is just brushing aside that they say they did exactly what you asked for.
What is so unthinkable about producing compatibility with a file format that has a test suite? Or cloning any particular feature from a high-level description and a screenshot of its dialog?
They can say lots of things. I don't believe everything I'm told. Do you?
Nothing - that's something I can believe.
Any particular feature? No problem. The entire software suite function-for-function in just a few weeks? Without "cheating?" Yeah, that's a bit much.
Why.
We've mechanized this process. Doing it repeatedly, and quickly, is what that looks like.
This isn't a decomp searching for exact compiler output. Function-for-function means, there is a Gaussian blur filter, and it responds to the same shortcut and settings. It's not bit-for-bit identical. Is that supposed to take a month, by itself? Why wouldn't this move very quickly, once the most important functions are good enough?