Coding an App with AI

I have always wanted to make an iOS app. Why? I don’t know. The thought just appealed to me. Create some sort of app on my own that I could use to do some kind of task. (It was a very generic dream. What can I say?) Of course, one of the biggest obstacles standing between me and my dream was the fact that I didn’t actually know how to code anything. I mean, I’d watched a couple of videos on the subject, and I understood the essentials (like, “you write code to tell a computer what to do”), but I knew no programming languages and didn’t even know how in the world I’d even begin to write an app.

This is probably why I never got anywhere close to making my dream a reality. That whole “you actually have to start” thing kept getting in the way.

However, I’d read that AI could do a passable job at coding, and I was getting better and better at using AI, so the natural question became “Could I use AI to write an app for me?” Maybe this was a great shortcut toward realizing my dream!

I asked AI. It told me that I needed to learn how to code in Swift first, the language used for iOS apps. This made sense, though it was somewhat disappointing (read: harder than I wanted). Still, I decided to get down to work. I began an online course about Swift fundamentals that promised me I would have things down pat in 100 days.

I kept that up for around 3 weeks, during which time I got through around 14 of the 100 lessons. And then I just started feeling like learning Swift was a whole lot more than I wanted to do. So I went back to AI and asked it if it could help me design an app if I didn’t learn any Swift at all.

It said, “Sure. Why not?”

And that’s what I’ve been doing in my spare time since then. I’ve learned a ton about how to make apps and how to use AI to do so, and I’ve actually created an honest-to-goodness, functional app in the process. (It’s focused on logging what you read, watch, and play, and then seeing what your friends are doing as well.) Am I ready to share it with you? Not quite. As I’ve been working on it, I’ve come to understand how important the underlying framework of an app can be. How you navigate. How you build a database. And in that process, I’ve seen that the way AI has been building this app with me has been inconsistent at best.

I’ve described it as follows: I asked AI to help me build a boat. It threw together a boat-shaped object that does a great job looking just like a boat from shore. The moment you put it in the water, however, you start to see all the leaks. Can you still sail in it? You bet, as long as you don’t mind non-stop bailing.

So I’m starting again, using what I’ve learned to see if I can’t actually direct AI to build things the right way this time. I am very optimistic that this is going to work. I really think I’ll be able to be successful and have an app in the AppStore. And no, I still don’t know how to code in Swift. (Then again, I DO know a lot about how Swift code is put together now, and I’m getting better and better and troubleshooting it. So it’s kind of like learning a language by plopping yourself down in the middle of the new country.)

Again, this is with current AI. AI that is getting better all the time. I imagine it will only get easier for me. I’ve discovered it’s something I really enjoy doing, and which I imagine I’ll continue to do after I finish this first app. The biggest limiter at the moment is that AI begins to throttle you if you ask it too many difficult questions too quickly. (Coding is a difficult question for it.) So I regularly am told by AI that I can’t ask any more questions until a few hours have passed. That’s actually not the worst for me–it means I force myself to take breaks. Considering how laser-focused I can get on a project, that’s a helpful nudge.

Anyway. That’s where things are now. Once I’ve got everything in a format that’s good to go, I’ll come on here again and let you know more about it.