Home cooked software

Software is in a massive transition phase where it is now possible for non-developers to produce software that was previously the remit of professional developers.

There has been a lot of focus recently on “vibe coding” - using AI to develop software by refining it iteratively using more and more specific prompts. This is great as a way to open up programming to a wider audience. However there is still currently a need for the professional developers when enterprise like features such as security, performance, maintainability and scalability are important - but that gap is closing.

It is great for developing “Home cooked software”, a term I came across in the article Home-Cooked Software and Barefoot Developers by Maggie Appleton. It was written well before vibe coding was a term and highlights the ability to produce small applications that solve a personal problem or task, without the need to always make it an app that people can buy or download.

An application can have a single user as long as it solves a problem for that user.

These new developers, who sit between being an end user and a professional developer, are referred to as “Barefoot Developers”. They can lean on the upcoming low code / no code / AI tools to write their code.

I am a professional developer, and have been for a long time, but I love the idea of home cooked software.

I have my own application, called “My Assistant” that I use to perform tasks and solve problems that only I am likely to have. If I come across something that I think I will need to do multiple times and can be automated I add it as a feature.

I am using it to create these posts. When I see a web page I like I can drag a link onto it, it automatically fetches the title of the page and then I can add these notes. At some point later I can select a bunch of them and click Publish. It creates the basis for the blog post that I can then edit. It also launches everything I need to test the post and then publish it to Github.

Another feature of my application provides allows me to launch a bunch of applications when I start the day with a single click. It also has a some features for resizing images, creating markdown links and tweaking urls. I have a few more features that I will be adding soon.

Some of the features may be useful to someone else but the combination, especially around the blogging, is just specific to me. There is no need for me to make this an application that others can download.

What small problems can you solve that would make your life easier or better?

(Oh and it is hot outside at the moment so I am barefoot currently).