This post was written by a human, expect flaws in judgement, typos and _gasp_ grammatical errors.
Last year I read an interesting post calling the era we're entering the "Personal Software" era. It's something I've been thinking of as I continue to use AI to build software both professionally, but even more so personally.
I'm asked a lot by people when I meet them what do I do for fun, I used to give a nerdy answer "I code for work and fun" but I think now days it's shifting to I like to build things. I tinker, I make things that scratch the itch for me.
I can wake up, roll out of bed and kick off a project and within a few hours have something that proves what I got out of bed to see is possible and then the fun part happens, I cook more, I let the software evolve and then you start to see a level of polish that normally with hand-cooked software would take weeks.
That's not to say your hand-cooked software isn't delicious, but you know, sometimes that store bought pasta sauce tastes just fine on a weeknight too. When I go to a fancy restaurant I appreciate the level of effort that goes into cooking it, because I cook at home too. But you know I'm ok at home using shortcuts like my store bought pasta sauce, it's close enough for me anyway after a work day.
The Personal Software era is an interesting one because of that simple ability to roll out of bed with a "hmm I wonder if I could build that" and then some prompts and lever pulls at the token machine and you've got working software exactly like you asked for.
I've embraced it, I'm building more than ever, in the last two years I've built my own Git forge (long before the tech billionaires set upon it), multiple apps I use to run my dev machines and so much more. Some I started with intentions to ship to users, some I've shipped to users at work for example, but at the end of the day that's software built by me, for me.
At the same time, when you only use things that you make for yourself you close off a bit, so it's GOOD to actually go try someone else's cooking. You'll see how they approached it, what novel ideas did they try that you could take back to your software kitchen and put to work.
I think this is the final boss of those who tinker and self-host, you end up producing so much personal software you're just maintaining it forever, or not. Perhaps it is OK if you build this crazy cool project and get a use out of it for a day or a week and then never touch it again.
I've definitely already seen that happen in personal software I've made for myself. I've built a lot, it's served its purpose and then I can let it go because I don't need it anymore. If I do, I can pull the token lever and update it for what I need it for again.
I do genuinely love to build products for people, to save them 20 minutes of pain delights me to no end for work. But I also love building things. I like taking an idea for a workflow and then it coming to life in front of me.
Perhaps this is just a maximum dose of "cope" I'm taking here with writing this blog post, because I love to build things and then marketing to real users is the hard part that I don't want to do, but it's how I feel. If I can build some great software for me, maybe share it with some friends and they enjoy it, that's good enough for me outside of work.
You're an hour or two away from getting a prototype going for that next idea you have. Are you sitting on it for another two years, or are you going to build something for you? Pull the pressure off of releasing it to the public. Just you.
Thanks for reading!
✌️Andrea