[mitjam]

Coding agents let me build and throw away prototypes extremely fast. A major value, for me, is that they help me understand early what users truly want and need — rather than relying on assumptions or lingering in abstraction. They help me discover and reduce my ignorance.

[mexicocitinluez]

I've been building an EMR as a solo dev for a few years now while working at a healthcare agency. The main stakeholders are the CEO (super tech friendly, business type), the owner (nurse for longer than I've been alive) and the other clincians I work with.

What I learned very early on after having direct access to the users was how difficult it was to describe a future state of the application (or fish for pain points) without having something tangible to show/compare. A lot of them have a hard time thinking abstractly about software (and I don't blame them).

A few weeks back, I showed Bolt.new to the CEO and ever since then, our workflow has sped up tremendously. He has the technical know-how and desire to sketch out ideas he thinks will be useful (in lieu of me spending a week to build something up, getting it knocked down, and repeating over and over again). I told him to instruct it to use mock data and it's already using the exact same stack I use (React/Tailwind/React Aria). He knows enough about the process that it's not as simple as building it in Bolt, but also knows how valuable it's been to me.

I'm constitutionally incapable of building a decent UI. So bad that I can take a well designed system and completely screw it up. I just can't extrapolate on designs well (and even got into an argument during an interview with a designer because I mentioned that as one of my weaknesses). Having the ability to go back and forth with a "designer" and not get angry that I'm asking for EXACT examples has been insanely refreshing.

Our goal is to get enough of the app together (while also being mindful of stuff like accessibility) and then bring in the professionals at the end. We've burnt so much money bringing in designers too early, and now we can get to a baseline before asking for help.

I truly believe that we are witnessing another renaissance in software dev. Instead of development being relegated to the big dev companies and FAANG's, the economics of a small company bringing on a software developer are changing enough that it could turn the tide. Instead of one-size-fits-all behemoths, we can now tailor software to the client.