I got caught in this vibe coding movement and built a bunch of games using JavaScript, Node.js, PHP, SQLite, service workers and more.
I built games like this before, when “vibe coding” was not a thing. I built a robot game, and an idle exploration game. I also built an idle space game. I also built a “relaxing trees and hills and rocks and lakes builder” type of thing using A-Frame JS.
When the AI became a thing, I expanded on these games using the early ChatGPT, and then Google’s Bard (now Gemini). Then I moved on completely to AI-generated code and built a 2D top-down racing game. And the last experiment was a basic clone of Farmville, the original one, published by Zynga on Facebook.
And then I stopped. It’s fun and I can create a bunch of awesome things, something I’ve always wanted to do. But then I decided that I can do even more. I can code entire apps, WordPress plugins, WooCommerce modules, even a small SaaS. And the advantage is that I can create them in less time than by myself. The first plugin was a WooCommerce currency switcher. I needed it for a charity project, where the client needed to be able to switch currency to a fixed value (not currency conversion) and also to block certain payment gateways based on currency. It worked like a charm, and the code is (literally) 10 times smaller than the top 10 commercial plugins out there.
Why 10 times? Because no ads, no Pro version upsell, no compatibility with other plugins. And this doesn’t mean my plugin is not compatible with other plugins. The AI made sure the price is changed last, after all other potential plugins had their chance. And IT IS working.
The latest project is a chatbot using Google’s Gemini. It can have a natural conversation with any user requesting support, and it can point them to various destinations (URLs) on the website, depending on their requests. It can be trained in a basic way (no memory) with the company and services details. You can see it on the Support page.
I find the AI coding very helpful, especially with good training, rules and guidelines. Also, all the code the AI builds needs to have proper documentation, using DocBlocks.
A DocBlock is a piece of documentation in your source code that informs you what the function of a certain class, method, or other Structural Element is.
As a senior developer, I don’t see myself coding anything from scratch, unless it’s something small, or some addition to some existing code I’m familiar with.
Things changed.
Coding won’t be the same again.
Some things will still be the same, but AI is here to stay now. I’m looking forward to seeing what will happen in 5 years from now. How many apps and games and services and products will be built using AI. Partially or completely.
The Post-Developer Era — Two years ago, Josh published a piece on the rise of AI, and the fear and anxiety that devs were feeling at the time about AI taking jobs. Now, two years on, he’s back with a follow-up to see how things have panned out so far, and how to now frame our thinking on these rapidly evolving set of tools and technologies.
