Music, Tech, & Art
...and that curious substance known as misc

My very good, constantly changing, rapidly evolving process

So at first I was coding with Chat GPT. Alt-tabbing and ctrl-c/v-ing my way to building things.

That worked for a time. I built a React Native iOS app for a client for five figures that is running in their offices. That’s been in production for over a year now.

Since my process has changed several times over since then, I thought I’d document the big steps and key details. I will note that each major change has been a step function improvement in either my productivity and/or the quality of work getting done.

Steps in my journey

  1. Chat GPT - prompt + copy/paste. Approximately 2022-2024. I created the following with this process:

    1. Meeting Room App - will be available soon at least in iOS app store. It’s built with React Native so theorhetically it will work on Android, but outside of simulators, I don’t yet have a real device to test. This is running in production as a one-off, purpose-built app for a client. The client is allowing me to also release this in the app store if I choose to. The client is Peterson Companies.

    2. https://you-are-here.space/ - See my post about creating this muse and life-long dream.

    3. I also used this approach to build a custom domain analysis tool for Peterson Cos as well. They hired me to do a 100+ domain migration from Network Solutions to Cloudflare.

    4. Things I learned:

      1. Git has always been your best friend, but especially now.

      2. It types a lot faster than I do and it has also dramtically increased my typing speed because I’m writing to it all the time. What it does better is all the syntax related typing faster…the things my keyboard and memory aren’t built for. I type WORDS faster now as a result. It’s more natural.

      3. As `antirez` has pointed out in detail, copy/paste LLM usage has a benefit in that there is a human in the loop.

  2. Cursor

    1. Phase 1 - flailing: this was a mix of copy/paste from Chat GPT and trying to understand how to work with Cursor. There were a few projects I burned to the ground and recreated.

    2. Phase 2 - active acheivment - I got the hang of it, plus Cursor kept improving. Agent was working better. There still was some dramatic flailing

    3. Phase 3 - speed dating + flirting with vibe platforms

    4. Things I learned:

      1. RULES RULES RULES

      2. BACKUPS beyond just git - for a while, during flailing, I added a post-commit hook that backedup the whole repo to another location before I moved forward. It was even easier to just get started again if need be and more importantly I had total peace of mind.

      3. Being a product manager first and then a coder is my strength here.

      4. Even with rules, the LLM will still ignore you (it always ran `cd` commands, which I found to be where it got lost most. Lost literally in the directory structure so some commands it issued could wreak havoc when applied in the wrong directory)

  3. What’s next?

  4. Side mission - I did a bakeoff between Loveable.dev, v0.dev, and bolt.new for a new greenfield project. Lovable won hands down. The app was react/vite, tailwind, with supabase and stripe integration. Lovable did it all in one session with not much flailing. Now I use Lovable regularly for landing pages, simple CRUD prototypes or whatever whim I have…gets me what I need about 95% of the time. Easy to eject it into GitHub and go normal code with Claude Code or Cursor/editor of your choice from there.

  5. Claude Code

    1. Phase 1 - Anthropic API usage @ about $25/day.

    2. [CURRENT] Phase 2 - Max plan and shutdown paid Chat GPT and API usage

    3. Things I learned:

      1. Watch pricing changes; know that a LOT of this is subsidized like early Uber/Lyft rides and the pricing will change (it will cost more in the future; get hooked carefully and intentionally and awarefully)

      2. Keep your eyes peeled and ears to the ground. Always. When you see something mentioned three or more separate times, take a look and try it out. Each of the above changes came as a result of that process.