Maybe you’ve heard of “vibe coding” — using AI tools to create small task-specific web-based apps, where even a little knowledge of coding is barely required. I’ve been listening to Hard Fork podcast, where users are sharing the ways they are creating apps with AI for specific tasks. It seemed interesting and worth a look.
So I jumped into Anthropic’s Claude (my AI of choice), and asked it to create a generator of text that used lyrics from the late Shane MacGowen, of The Pogues, as its source. I watched as the AI created the code in its window, then showed me a preview, and then I hit the publish button to see the site, live. This all took only a few minutes.
Claude then explained to me how it used phrases inspired by Shane and not direct lyrics (probably copyright infringement protections, which I suppose it a good thing), and then asked me a series of questions about revisions, such as did I want to add sound clips?
I did, but the coded product, of course, needed sound files, which Claude does not have but I could have taken the code elsewhere and added sound. I also tried to add a photo gallery of Shane pics, and again, it coded the template for me, but would not provide the photos.
I still did some tinkering, through requests, on the visual design of the site, until I landed on something that I was Ok with. Check out the app that Claude made for me: Irish Wisdom.
Overall, I found the experiment interesting, and will need to ponder a better use for this function.
Peace (in the code),
Kevin
PS — here is the link to the section of Hard Fork where folks called in about their own “vibe coding” adventures. It’s interesting.