Adventures in Vibe Coding

This week i've spent some time 'vibe coding' an app using V0 , Vercel's AI-assisted coding environment. I've been trying to stick to just using the free tier because i don't yet want to commit to spending £20 per month when i'm not 100% sure if i'll stick to using it, what this means is it sort of feels like i'm 'coding' the app via the medium of snail mail, i've test the app, write down a list of improvement, prompt v0 to make those changes, test it, run out of credits, then wait a day until my credits replenish.

I'm building a really basic Electron app for Mac and Windows to solve a really specific use case that i have, the use case is so small, and the app is some minimal that i keep wondering whether i could just make do with using something i already have to solve the problem. Once i've finished the app, if i actually use it regularly then i might stick it online for people to download for a couple of quid.

On the whole the experience of using v0 has been really good, i went from 0 to a basic app within a couple of hours of prompting, if i were coding it myself i reckon i'd have got to the same point within about 24 hours, but with a lot more frustration. V0 did throw some oddities along the way, at one point it had compeltely removed all of the electron code and i was left with just a nextjs app, so i had to revert to a previous version, this was mainly my fault, a) i'd misinterpreted when v0 was saying it was removing the electron specific stuff from the codebase and b) I didn't test between multiple iterations of prompts, so only realised after i'd wasted a handful of my free prompts. Also around the same time v0 introduced a series of bugs that prevented any successful deployments to Vercel, again this was reolved by me just reverting to an older version, which was easy to do.

I've now used several of these type of products e.g. Replit, Cursor, My experience so far has been so similar that its really hard to choose between them, so far the only real difference i've found is the pricing models and the freemium models e.g. I've now used up all my free credits on Replit, whereas v0's model is to always give you free credits afer a replenishment period.

If i manage to get to the point of having a useful app, then i might then consider going for the base paid tier, and have a look at building some of the things that have long been on my ideas backlog.

Public Speaking

I had the opportunity to do some public speaking this week. I have an odd relationship with public speaking that i'll summarise as:

• Its not something i'm naturally predisposed to do (although i wonder if many people are)
• because of this its something i spend an inordinate amount of time preparing and practising for, as i've found this a) helps me make it as good as i can and b) preparation increases my confidence, which improves the result
• It is something i enjoy doing for the following reasons: a) I get a bit of a buzz from doing it and b) preparing to talk on a topic forces you to engage and familiarise yourself with the topic, and challenge your way of talking about and therefore thinking about the topic in a really useful way. I definitely find that i have greater clarity and a more mature perspective on a topic once i've given a talk about the topic. I guess when you are exposing your thinking to others it forces you to address any intellectual laziness or shortcuts.
• Public speaking is something i've done badly many times, i've learnt lessons from each of these times that i try not to repeat, and my focus on (pretty much) over-prepping is an effort to not repeat those mistakes
• Completing a bit of public speaking, and feeling like it went well is a great feeling, getting positive feedback from attendees is an even better feeling.

Prioritising is easy, sticking to the priorities is the hard bit

I've been reflecting on this from both a general work, but also individual work perspective. Currently part of my daily practice is to bullet journal, and part of my bullet journal habit is to re-write my todo list every day, i then highlight the top 3 things i want to do that day. My reflection this week was pretty much every day this week i had the same 3 things as priorities on my todo list, by the end of the week i had completed one, and made some progress on the other two, whilst having nailed a whole bunch of other tasks that never made it onto my top 3. I think this will always happen to a certain extent, but my reflection this week was that i need to think about how i structure my work to make sure i do nail my priorities, and how easy it is for me to get distracted on lower value tasks, often probably just for the dopamine hit of having completed and easier to complete task.

Hello quarterly existential work crisis

I've come to realise and accept that pretty much every quarter or so i'll have to endure a dip into a period of navel-gazing, negative-reflecting self-analysis and self-flagellating. I'm going through that again right now and its not that fun. What i know is a) this happens and will happen again so i just need to ride it out b) part of the cause of this is me being self-aware and reflective, and wanting do better, none of these are bad things c) I am not my work or my feelings about my work d) theres always a trigger or driver, and interrogating that is much more valuable than sitting in the malaise.

0-30 Technology Leadership Framework

Its been really great to get some early signups for the 0-30 technology leadership framework that i'm developing (drop your email here to get notified when it launches). I really hope it will become a useful tool for anyone either starting or about to start a new leadership role in a tech/IT/tech-adjacent role.
I've mapped out what i think is a really clear and useful structure, I just need to crack on with building out the content :)