From Code-Phobic to AI-Powered Developer

My No-Code AI journey - Chapter 1

For some time, I have been intrigued by no-code AI applications to create apps. This journey started with Claude, where I was flabbergasted by the use of artifacts. Like magic, my application appeared on the right screen, just by me saying what I wanted.

See for example the application below which was literally created from a single prompt. You may play with it here, or by clicking on the image below:

Soon, I was into making all sorts of small nifty applications, like a timeboxing app, an idea generation app, an AI readiness app, and so on. It was pretty cool. It also had some limitations in terms of program size, backend features, deployment and so on. But nevertheless cool. I was hooked.

You may see some of the stuff I initially created here - just click on the image to access this, or click here.

Enlightened as inspired, I moved into heavier no-code drugs. I tried Cursor a few times but gave up soon. Too complicated for my taste. I am not a programmer, really, so I quickly got lost in confabulations, file structures, function calls and SQL queries. Enter Replit – that was a bit better, I spent a weekend trying to build something but ended up disappointed.

Unlike "hallucination," which suggests seeing things that aren't there, confabulation refers to the creation of plausible but potentially inaccurate information. Many times, your no-code tool will confabulate, i.e. it will generate code or responses that seem logical but may actually not work or exist.

The real test came during a talk last year, where I created a workshop signup tool on the fly for an audience of process facilitators. They were (of course) awe-struck by how easily I could create something functional with just a few prompts. Then came the question: "And then what happens once you have signed up?" I winged it with a vague answer about database integration, but the truth was – I didn't know.

Standing there, in front of an audience of process facilitators, trying to explain the limitations of my AI-powered creation, I realized I was at a turning point. The magic of no-code AI development had captured my imagination, but real-world applications demanded more. This tension between what was possible and what was needed would drive my exploration forward, leading me to discover tools like Lovable.dev. But that's a story for another time – first, let me share what I learned from these early steps into the world of AI-assisted development.