I am not a programmer.

I love how vibecoding has opened the door for hyper-custom apps and scripts that benefit an exact audience of One.

Last week, I built a dynamic map to track local Play! Pokémon tournaments. It uses leafletjs and an api for an ICS file of events. I don't know what most of those words mean, but I have something perfect for me and my local competitive Pokémon community!

I get that. I am a non-programmer who vibe codes personal web apps for Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon TCG. I turn them into github pages for easy access for myself.

I don't share them with my hobby communities because I don't want to hear feedback because I don't want these finished projects to become eternal projects.

Curious what does your app do/web app? And how good is the vibe coding part, do you generally get what you're trying to achieve in first few runs?

That's cool you're able to make what you want with that tech.

My latest apps are

* Cardsphere (Magic card trading website) wishlist to inventory comparer * Scryfall (Magic card database) search result CSV Downloader * Cube Tagger, an app to easily tag cards with function tags for easy categorizing in cubes (boardgamified collection of Magic cards)

The vibe coding part is wonderful because I can "make" the software I want. However, it always takes hours of runs to get to where I need it to be because I'm unpracticed at project planning. I constantly hit critical edge cases and UX problems.

I totally get that. I have a super corpo buddy who tells me every project is 80% planning and he uses that philosophy for his personal projects. That makes sense for a huge company.

I resist working like that because I am mega ignorant and I know I will encounter problems that I won't recognize until I get to them.

But, I also HATE having to rework my projects because of something I overlooked.

My (attempted) solution is to slog through a chat with an AI to build a Project Requirements Document and to answer every question it asks about my blindspots. It mostly helps build stuff. And sometimes the friction prevents me from overloading myself with more unfinished projects!

I built a single page website that copies the current time to my clipboard and I paste it into my messages. It's inconvenient and I don't do it irregularly.

I'll have to look into the extension described in the link. Thank you for sharing. It's nice to know it's a shared problem.

Look into keyboard macro programs for a much easier way to do this. I use Espanso and have it set up to paste the time anywhere I type `;tm`.

On windows you could write AutoHotkey macro to do it for you - just paste current time at the cursor at the touch of the trigger key.

I really enjoyed your experiments. Thank you for sharing your experiences. They've improved my prompting and have tempered my expectations.

Thank you for sharing. This was a fascinating read.

I spun off geek-themed speed dating to geek themed singles mixers. They have party games, couch co-op and vs games, karaoke, and get-to-know-you games to encourage strangers to talk to each other. A drink is included with the ticket.

I tried creating my own loot box reward system where I earn points for completing tasks (literally spare change), and I can use the money to buy a die roll, with a d20 dictating what prize I got. Prizes would be things like permission to buy Pokémon cards or a full price video game, etc, with a guaranteed "high rarity" prize every X rolls.

Maybe it'd be fun to combine this with your receipts, where random tasks reward points to earn prizes.

Or maybe this is just more procrastination!

> Or maybe this is just more procrastination!

Well, what is life but procrastinating on death?

I learned basic electronics repair from modding and building arcade controllers, aka Fightsticks. That eventually evolved into Game Boy repair, and iPod retrofitting, and electronics restoration. It's kind of like cooking; find something you want to make, then follow the directions, and then make something else, and eventually, you'll come across a problem that you have the foundation to solve.

The most basic core of practical electronics repair is that there are things that should be conductive and things that shouldn't be conductive and you need to figure out how to do either.

Crappy consultant? That's redundant ;)

Seriously, though, within the context of software development, these are all issues I've encountered as well, and I don't know how to program: sweeping solutions, inability to resolve errors, breaking down all components to base levels to isolate problems.

But, again, I don't know how to program. For me, any consultant is better than no consultant. And like the author, I've learned a ton on how to ask for what I want out of Cursor.