Positive Vibe Coding – draft

Intro

There are always new things to learn in life. There are especially new things to learn in tech. The onset of AI has sped this up even more than possible.

As a technical writer, it behooves me to learn about everything in general, and AI in particular.

And any time i’ve wanted to learn anything new, I’ve found a great way to do that was to find a project that interests me. And use that as a way to lead me through.

And I had a whole roster of things I’ve been wanting to make real in the world, even for my own enjoyment.

So! Vibe coding seemed a great way to go. Three birds with one stone.

I knew I wanted to set things up so they were simple and free. I already knew I wanted to work with LLMs and agents as collaborators – neither to be ignored nor to be unthinkingly followed. It also suited me to keep all of this work on the free tier, or if not as cheaply as possible.

GitHub was a great base for this, including for scripting execution of Python. After further research, Netlify worked great for staging and Google’s Cloud Compute ended up being cheap enough to be a good solution for simple database needs. Web browesers on platforms was a good way to save user files locally and safely, eliminating the need for logins and secure encrypted storage of any user information. So that was a great solution for what to do with the files apps might need to usefully operate.

 

I started making things that I wanted.

I’m still making them. At today’s count 39.

Here are 3 of my current faves.

App 1: Metabot

Led me through starting to use Gemini. Also Netlify. Also Github Copilot to start. which also led me through Claude CLI.

Also, part of the way in, I got entranced with n8n and setting that up.

…Figma

getting to quickly dig into high-level front-end design and UX.

App 2: Weird Chess

• what it teaches me about game design
• what it teaches me about apps in the iOS store.

App 3: Code-wiki aka Docsy McDocsface

this was fun. creating somethign that doesn’t exist because it’s my own use case, that could conceivably be of benefit to others.

 

Outro

The real meta: practices this enforces.

• testing
  • common issues that can crop up across many different releases become a larger education
• preferences
  • creating MCPs with my preferences
• language choice
• hosting – storing user files, getting by without logins for now
• monitoring – Uptime Robot
  • set this to monitor endpoints also.
• modular reuse of components
• documentation – There wasn’t a repo-wide method for documenting apps. So I had one whipped up. That’s available here if people want to adapt it for themselves.

None of which makes me a developer in any way, shape, or form. Any more than using generative AI for pictures makes me a painter.

All of which helps me understand making any kind of art, from paintings to software applications that delight and help people on a daily basis, much better.

All of which are great aspects of software development for me to be aware of when documenting, and especially great to have reinforced through my own efforts towards what engineers work with every day: getting the freaking thing to work.

let what you want to do lead you through what you want to learn.

think about what most interests you, then what could help you do that, and then also at least once thing about what most interests someone else you know specifically and how an application could help them.

Separate note:

They heading superpower or benefit to using llms in this way can be, the power of being curious. Specifically, getting used to, or becoming used to, very clearly identifying questions. I’m making a really specific, and pursuing them until you get a useful answer for what you want to do.

This is identical to what helps someone as a creative artist: getting really in touch with the specific aspects of what you enjoy, what lights you up, and then pursuing that with focus. That’s what makes anything yours.

I’m curious and being a lifelong learner be great to bring to LOL news. It can be a multiplier of your llm outputs, and your LOL output skin be further multiplied by your specific curiosity.

I found this specifically with the suggested updates for my repo.

Leftovers

ShamAIn and nutrional app counseling

Got to create an app for a friend of mine with a nutrional consulting business. Helps her format her docs according to her plan.

Bespoke apps to help people are great, and also a sign of what may come. I wonder if in a few years we might have largely transitioned to physical infrastructure and basic recipes or products people can integrate into their own lives…like going to the supermarket, OR your local grocer, and assembling what you want for your life as “dinner”.

Who knows the future? In the meantime, in the present, here are some already great things we can do.