Make Your Own App
Some time ago, I made Lounge, a fully vibe-coded GTK-native app to track movies I watched recently. I wrote 0 line of code.
Is it perfect? No. Is it the most efficient app for that? Nope. Are there better alternatives I could've just download from the internet? Absolutely. The point is that it works, for me.
Could I just make one myself instead of using AI? Probably. I made a similar web app before. I kinda don't want to learn to build GTK apps just for this one off project, so I used AI.
They Are Getting Really Good
If you look back in 2 or 3 years ago, you can really feel the difference. Especially when you look at existing tools dedicated for this type of thing (code), like Cursor, Claude Code, OpenCode, etc.
Is software engineering dead? No. I'd rather say it's evolving. Your workflow will be different, but at the end of the day what matters is the end result.
Users never really cared how you make your app. Your responsibility is still the same, which is to make it good.
The app I made is really simple so I avoid using technical terms and just use plain old English.
When you make a more complex app though, like Lee Robinson did on Pixo1, I think agents still need to be put on a leash closely.
“You need to design a well-engineered system. Could anyone who can write English have created this? Maybe, but I’m skeptical they would have landed on something well-engineered.”
You can't just ask an agent to build something until it works and feels "good enough" without some sort of setup (e.g. Ralph Wiggum technique).2
Year of the Personal Software?
Today, the everyday people would probably better off using existing apps. Though this will could change.
“The entire principle of apps relies on some faith that designers; and the collective feedback of their users, can come up with a workflow or design paradigm that is better than what you; an individual could come up with.”
— LaurieWired on X
The current state of AI is almost already ready for the "personal software" era. At least for software engineers or other highly technical people who knows what they want to build.3
It might be too early to tell, the concept of personal software might even be entirely different.