https://conjuringcode.com Make Your Own Software With AI en-us Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://conjuringcode.com/carnadh https://conjuringcode.com/carnadh Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Book piles, a Japanese word, and an app named in Irish. How I built Carnadh, a household library you catalog by taking photos of your shelves. https://conjuringcode.com/code-is-weird https://conjuringcode.com/code-is-weird Fri, 21 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT If you feel like you should be able to read code but can't, there's nothing wrong with you. Code is cryptic, terse, and arbitrary for reasons that have nothing to do with you—and these days you can just ask the agent to translate it. https://conjuringcode.com/podcast/07-andy-balinsky https://conjuringcode.com/podcast/07-andy-balinsky Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Andy Balinsky spent his career in computer security. Retired now, he's pointed that same attention at the things he loves: a podcast player that lets music keep playing underneath, a crib sheet for hundreds of traditional Irish session tunes, and a field app for the Purple Martin colonies he and his wife have tended for 25 years. https://conjuringcode.com/a-contractor-in-your-back-yard https://conjuringcode.com/a-contractor-in-your-back-yard Fri, 07 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Software engineers have spent 50 years building millions of tiny specialized tools. An AI coding agent is the handyman who knows which one your job needs—and he's parked in your back yard. https://conjuringcode.com/podcast/06-michael-porcelli https://conjuringcode.com/podcast/06-michael-porcelli Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Michael Porcelli builds software for himself, not for other people: a receipt splitter for mile-long Costco bills, a ledger tracking his siblings' equity in an inherited house, and a database of his late father's 75,000-card baseball collection. https://conjuringcode.com/hail-mary-full-of-grease https://conjuringcode.com/hail-mary-full-of-grease Thu, 16 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT The hero of Project Hail Mary does things no lone scientist ever could—unless he brought along something like an AI coding agent. That's the hopeful vision of AI: not a replacement, but a quiet tool for doing much bigger things. https://conjuringcode.com/gears-and-ghosts https://conjuringcode.com/gears-and-ghosts Fri, 19 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT There are now two kinds of software: gears and ghosts. The best systems will combine them both. https://conjuringcode.com/podcast/05-jonathan-milton https://conjuringcode.com/podcast/05-jonathan-milton Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jonathan Milton on turning his healthcare-operations expertise into useful tools — a calculator that exposes the fully loaded cost of staffing, and a game to coach future health care execs on solving the human problems well. https://conjuringcode.com/podcast/04-jim-hanas https://conjuringcode.com/podcast/04-jim-hanas Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jim Hanas spent his career in publishing, most recently as VP of Marketing at HarperCollins, but he hadn't been "under the hood" of technology in twenty years. Then a couple of friends got him "Claude-pilled", and within weeks he'd launched smallpressinsights.com. https://conjuringcode.com/apps-that-work-the-way-you-think https://conjuringcode.com/apps-that-work-the-way-you-think Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Personal software lets you build for the way your brain actually works—not the way someone else thinks it should. https://conjuringcode.com/beta-part-deux https://conjuringcode.com/beta-part-deux Fri, 15 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Beta round 2 of the Conjuring Code book launches Friday, May 15th. If you'd like to be a beta reader, sign up here. https://conjuringcode.com/podcast/03-mark-wochner https://conjuringcode.com/podcast/03-mark-wochner Fri, 08 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Mark Wochner on building software in hotel rooms across three continents, his Historicast app for looking up the weather in the past, and why building for an audience of one might be the most freeing thing you can do. https://conjuringcode.com/podcast/02-sharon-klardie https://conjuringcode.com/podcast/02-sharon-klardie Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Sharon Klardie on her "AI minions" — and how she's using them to build Board Forge for nonprofit boards, publish puzzle books, and prototype a math game for her 10-year-old. https://conjuringcode.com/the-guessing-machine https://conjuringcode.com/the-guessing-machine Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT LLMs are guessing machines—deeply capable and fundamentally untrustworthy at the same time. Knowing when to trust their guesses is the key to using them well. https://conjuringcode.com/do-over https://conjuringcode.com/do-over Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT When AI coding goes sideways, you have an option programmers never really had before: just take a do-over. https://conjuringcode.com/podcast/01-jacquelyn-halpern https://conjuringcode.com/podcast/01-jacquelyn-halpern Thu, 17 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT In this episode, I speak with the amazing Jacquelyn Halpern on how she got started with AI-assisted coding, and how she created a cooking app for herself and her family called Lil' Chef. https://conjuringcode.com/podcast/00-introduction https://conjuringcode.com/podcast/00-introduction Thu, 17 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT In this short introductory episode, I introduce what the Conjuring Code podcast is all about: helping regular people like you build software, using AI to help write the code. https://conjuringcode.com/post-its https://conjuringcode.com/post-its Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT When software becomes as cheap and disposable as a Post-It note, we'll use it for things we haven't even imagined yet. https://conjuringcode.com/first-draft-check https://conjuringcode.com/first-draft-check Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT The first draft of Conjuring Code (the book) is done! It's now in the hands of early beta readers. https://conjuringcode.com/programming-is-going-to-be-for-everybody https://conjuringcode.com/programming-is-going-to-be-for-everybody Sun, 29 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT Programming legend Steve Yegge is right: programming is going to be for everybody. And it's going to be the most amazing thing. https://conjuringcode.com/when-do-you-need-a-professional-engineer https://conjuringcode.com/when-do-you-need-a-professional-engineer Fri, 27 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT Is it OK to let AI write code for you? It depends on three things: longevity, reach, and consequences. https://conjuringcode.com/the-great-deflation-is-great https://conjuringcode.com/the-great-deflation-is-great Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT In most fields, software is so crappy, it's practically a bad word. The great deflation in software costs is very good news. https://conjuringcode.com/super-idea https://conjuringcode.com/super-idea Mon, 09 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT The Super Bowl ad that captures the joy of discovering you really can build software now, even if you couldn't before. https://conjuringcode.com/the-decision-pyramid https://conjuringcode.com/the-decision-pyramid Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT Programming is a series of decisions. AI moves you up the decision pyramid by making all the choices you don't want or need to make. https://conjuringcode.com/growth-mindset-for-ai https://conjuringcode.com/growth-mindset-for-ai Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT AI is uneven and changing rapidly. Are you guilty of having an AI fixed mindset? https://conjuringcode.com/software-is-the-best-thing-you-can-do-with-ai https://conjuringcode.com/software-is-the-best-thing-you-can-do-with-ai Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT There are lots of things you can do with AI, and in my opinion, most of them are bad. The only slam dunk for AI is using it to make software. https://conjuringcode.com/flying https://conjuringcode.com/flying Sun, 25 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT This feels like the zeitgeist right about now ... https://conjuringcode.com/work-on-a-copy https://conjuringcode.com/work-on-a-copy Thu, 22 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT Building software is among the best things you can do with AI, because you can always work on a copy. https://conjuringcode.com/anti-slop https://conjuringcode.com/anti-slop Mon, 20 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT I am anti-slop, and I think using AI to make software you actually care about is anti-slop, too.