It's been 12 years since i released an app
It's been a while since i've written a blogpost. And even longer since i've released an app for iOS. The last time was back in 2014... Back when i, and probably many others, were basically cowboying our way through it, spending late nights reading forums just to get things working.
Now, more than 10 years later, a lot has changed.
In my previous blogpost i talked about how i would finally start working on the Skept.nl app, because it had simply been too long since i developed a personal project app that i would actually release, and this one deserved it.
Yesterday, the 21st, it finally released after 18 test builds that friends, family and (old) colleagues tested. And i'm very grateful they did, because the Skept Kotlin Multiplatform App turned out better than i expected. And just like in 2014 it got approved first submission, but this time it didn't feel as satisfying...
And that's purely because any time i got stuck i "just asked the LLM to help me". And any time i didn't feel like porting x from Swift to Kotlincompose i "just asked the LLM to help me". You get my drift... I like to see myself as a logic developer. I'm not a designer/frontend developer, never have been. So basically anything involving visual/ux/ui design i make nowadays is written by an LLM.
I mean look at this example below, which one did i design, and which one did an LLM design?
very hard quiz,
Yeah, that looks like a completely new/different program, even though it still has the same core i programmed...
I had designed Skept as an engine with all functionality available through APIs, fully documented according to the OpenAPI spec. That makes it really easy to generate client code. So basically, the only thing still missing was the UI and the logic between the user's UI and the generated API code. And so it became to easy to use the LLM for these tasks.
I've written before about how the quality of LLM-generated code is getting better and better. And I still think that's true. There are many pitfalls and serious issues still arise, but with correct guidelines and guardrails it's basically prototype code that acts like production code. And like it or not, for 80% of user's usecases this is enough. People don't care how they get there, they just want to get there. Preferably fast and as cheap as possible.
That's also why this feels like a good final project, because i'm basically done with programming. I don't see any career in it anymore. I could see how way more experienced programmers can, but i'm just stuck in-between. And i'm definitely not becoming an LLM orchestrator.
Bizarre timing
About a week after bringing the Skept.nl website online, i was notified about a like-minded project that had launched in the same week. A friend sent me a post showing the project, and it had already gained some decent traction, which was very cool but also bizarre to see. I had done research before i started working on the workspace fork/Skept again, to see if there where any recent like-minded projects. And i couldn't find any.
Skept's idea was more of a mix of the best parts from multiple older, mostly lost social media designs, many never revived, but some of the biggest ideas behind it were pretty similar to this other project that had just come online.
But that was nothing compared to the news i read on the morning of the 22nd. To my complete surprise, after nearly 15 years, they brought back the social media platform that inspired the like-minded project above, and also a big part of Skept.
A day after i released the Skept app!
That's probably the most bizarre timing i've ever encountered.
But it also made something extremely clear to me: just how much has changed in the world of software development. And i believe LLMs are playing a big part in that.
And the craziest part is that it doesn't matter who or what came first, because the smallest is always the copier of the biggest in the eye of the common. hehe
And now?
i'm happy Skept wasn't just a 1:1 copy of the original, but actually has its own unique features. However it's impossible to share with friends and online now, as it will be seen as a copy.
And because i decided it would become my personal thingy, the Skept engine now hosts most of my personal projects,and soon many more. And you are more then welcome to join me and my friends, let's keep it "klein", "sociaal" en gezellig :)
PS: i had actually released a new blogpost before this one but it's exclusively on Skept:
Downlaod Skept for IOS: (https://apple.co/4yOI2Ew)
And android: (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.seppjm.skept)
Or visit Skept by web, SSH or Telnet.
Wait what?
Proost,