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AuthorPostedbyThomason May 25, 2025

Vibe Coding An App For Myself Is Good Vibes

This week I had an idea for an app that I want for myself. It’s sort of a Tinder for multipotentialites, except the images are projects I want to work on and topics I want to explore.

Also this week, I learned about Firebase Studio, so I gave it a try. It aims to be a full IDE for vibe coding. Vibe coding is a term referring to the use of AI to generate code by describing it in natural language. Instead of manually writing code, you describe the problem you want to solve, and AI generates the code for you. This approach allows for faster prototyping and development and you can focus on the application’s functionality and user experience rather than the coding details.

While promising, Firebase Studio was a bit cumbersome. Plus, it got into a dynamic error loop that I couldn’t escape. And it doesn’t do backend server coding. Bummer.

So I figured let’s give ChatGPT a try. It isn’t an IDE, but it is excellent as a coding buddy and I’ve been using it long enough to be really comfortable with it.

In the spirit of vibe coding, I started by laying out the requirements. Then I had it ask me for clarification and detail, including separating the development into phases along with a testing plan.

After about half an hour of back and forth, I had a pretty good requirements document, and a name for the app: Flow Spark. I told ChatGPT to create a markdown version of the plan with numbers and checkboxes. I printed that out. Yeah, I still like to check things off with a pen.

A few of the requirements: CodeIgniter 4 + PicoCSS + HTMX, full login with forgot password flows, beta invite codes, admin panel, and PWA behavior.

So far I’ve gotten through building the auth and beta invite flows. ChatGPT does forget the numbering system now and then, but it’s a simple matter to remind it of the numbers on the plan.

I’ve hit the usual snags, such as ChatGPT forgetting class paths and using the string ‘post’ instead of ‘POST’. It’s ok. It always figures it out after I show the code that I have. This is the only downside to not being an IDE. I can live with it though. Plus, every time it solves a problem, I’m learning something new.

I’m about 25% done with the app, and I only started coding this morning. Compared to how long it used to take to build an app like this, this feels fast.

I like it!

♡

Posted in ChatGPT and AI, Programming

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