WRITE YOUR OWN APPS WITH CHATGPT

BARRY COLLINS REVEALS HOW TO TAME THE AI TO CODE APPS ON YOUR BEHALF

- BARRY COLLINS

Of the many different things that large language models such as ChatGPT are capable of, coding is arguably the most impressive. There’s something mesmerising about watching the AI rattle out line after line of code, and then watching it run.

If you’ve got a great idea for app but don’t have the coding chops to make it happen, it’s certainly possible that the AI will be able to write it on your behalf - particularly if you’re coding in a popular language such as Python, which ChatGPT and rivals such as Claude and Google Gemini are right at home with.

I've now created several different apps with ChatGPT’s assistance. I've made an app that tracks your personal expenses, an app that helps split bills, and a Wordle-like game where you have to guess the name of a cricketer (that one’s in HTML/CSS, the others are in Python), among others.

None of them is particularly revolutionary, none of them will make me a millionaire. But the great thing about creating your apps with AI help is that you can design them to do exactly what you want them to, with no needless features or data sharing with Lord knows who.

I've learned a few things about coding with ChatGPT in the process, which I'll pass on here, and then you can enjoy my 12-step tutorial showing you how I created an app that keeps track of all your monthly subscriptions/bills and when their contracts expire, to show you how it’s done.

THE AI CODING MINDSET

My first piece of advice is moderate your expectations. AI is great at knocking out little apps and utilities that handle a specific task, but it’s highly unlikely you're going to code the next Photoshop or Excel with it. Once you start to get past a few hundred of lines of code, the AI starts to lose its way. Think small.