It's been a decade since I started my journey as an iOS developer. Ten years immersed in the Apple's ever-expanding ecosystem. I loved it, built a career on it, and became comfortable in that space. But something was missing, that electric feeling of discovery and possibility I felt when writing my first lines of code.
And then AI-assisted coding entered the scene.
A Spark Reignited
When I first experimented with AI coding assistants, something unexpected happened. That long-dormant excitement, the thrill of building something from nothing, of watching ideas materialize through code came rushing back. For the first time in years, I felt like a beginner again, but with the advantage of seasoned experience guiding my explorations.
This blog is my way of documenting this journey: exploring new technologies, building with AI, and sharing what I learn along the way.
2024: Testing the waters
Last year, I've launched two apps built entirely with AI assistance during my spare time:
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TMCBAE (This Meeting Could Be An Email): An app that helps teams reduce unnecessary meetings by allowing members to swipe and vote on better alternatives, similar to dating apps but for meetings. Available on the App Store.
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Postr: An AI-powered social media assistant that learns from accounts and styles you admire to help create engaging posts. Available on the App Store.
Both projects taught me incredible lessons about AI-assisted development and pushed my understanding of what's possible. I'll be sharing detailed breakdowns of how I built each one in upcoming posts.
Meta: This Website Was Built With AI
Perhaps the most meta aspect of this journey is that the very website you're reading was also built using AI. Despite having limited experience with modern web development (it's been years since I built a website), I was able to create this blog in a single Saturday using Next.js, with Cursor IDE and Claude Sonnet 3.7 MAX as my companions.
A few years ago, this would have been impossible. Learning Next.js from scratch would have taken weeks, and implementing a functional blog would have required extensive trial and error. But with AI guidance, the learning curve flattened dramatically.
AI: A Plane for the Human Mind
If, as Steve Jobs famously said, computers are "a bicycle for the mind," then AI-assisted tools feel like upgrading to a plane. The acceleration in productivity and creative output is not incremental, it's transformational.
In the coming posts, I'll share specific techniques I'm using with tools like Cursor, practical examples of AI-assisted coding, and honest reflections on both the benefits and limitations I've encountered.
If you're as excited about this new world as I am, I'd love to hear from you. Share this post and drop me a tweet at @filipealva to continue the conversation.
Here's to new beginnings, endless possibilities, and code that writes itself (well, almost).
