Software for One

When I was growing up, my parents wrote programs on a Commodore Plus/4, and later a Commodore 64. The 64 was my first computer. Neither of them worked in computing. They had other jobs, and they used Commodore BASIC to write little programs that automated repetitive parts of their work. The programs didn’t need a market. They didn’t need other users. My parents had something they wanted the computer to do, and they wrote a program to do it. That always seemed like a reasonable future for programming: everybody should be able to make the computer do the things that would make their own life easier. I’ve been building tools for myself with AI, and that old idea feels practical again. I can make an app around something I need, then change it as I use it. But keeping that app on my phone still means dealing with tools and processes organized around development, testing, and distribution. I want making software for myself to become an ordinary way to use the computer. Having a use for a…