42 years to build an app

This is the most personal episode I have ever recorded.

It's my near half-century journey to building an app. And how AI made it possible.

I'm a pre-beginner coder.

Yet eventually - and I mean, eventually, I somehow composed a working prototype of an application.

And I hope that I might inspire someone to give AI coding a shot. And learn the basics of coding - to get the most from this new, and hugely exciting, way to make things we love.

AI tools and models I've used for my working prototype:

• Google's Gemini 1.5 Pro
• Various AI coding extensions for VS Code (Cline, Roo Code, Aider, and Continue)
• GitHub Copilot Pro using Anthropic's legendary Sonnet 3.5 model
• Perplexity Pro (with OpenAI o1) for research
• Deep Seek R1 (try it free) for mindblowing progress
• Lovable for visual inspiration based on my initial PRD.

I almost gave up. Many times. I was literally and successfully prompting AI code editors to death.

But I don't enjoy giving up.

Find out what turned everything around.

And why you, too, should stay the course...