Is an idea good enough these days?

Let me start off by saying I cannot code. But just like many others I have a lot of ideas. A little while ago an idea would never be much more than an idea. Something people would tell others about and say "If I could, I would". But actually making an app or creating a line of code is not something that is easy for most of us.

Has this changed? Now everyone with a small starter capital could use an AI assistent to help him or her make their idea a reality. For me the only thing I had available was an iPad Pro from 2018, hardly a powerhouse but it could at least run Swift playground (just barely). So I began "coding" with Gemini, the only AI tool I had used so far. Pretty early on I already started to face my first problems, I had these ideas in my head but putting them into words my AI assistant would understand was quite harder than I assumed it would be. But I continued to slog on. Bit by bit my app started to take shape until I found out "context" is quite important. I had been working in the same chat window for days on end and as quick as my app took shape, it also got destroyed. My AI messed one thing up after the other. And I had no safety nets because of course I had no idea these things could happen or safety nets even existed. Angry and mad at both myself and this stupid AI, I pushed aside my project. But it did peak my interests, there is something addictive about being able to create and bring an idea to life.

The following days were all about research. I had to make sure that these things wouldn't happen again. I looked over threads, read blog after blog, asked question after question to my AI assistant. And I found out this was not just "type in some sentences and there you go"kinda deal. I did a lot of research and with my limited understanding I managed to switch to Claude, I bought a second hand Mac mini from 2018. I made a GitHub account and started to back up all the things that I was doing. I started to make progress. That said, even with all these new tools to my disposal I had to scale back my ideas again and again. Not only was I running into hardware limitations but also "prompt" limitations. Learning as you go, making mistakes after mistakes but slowly making a little bit of relentless forward progress. I made my first app, a simple timer. Then I made a second one, a budget tracker. And I just kept scaling and scaling up. Coming ever closer to having gathered the ability to "create" the app I have in my head.

This app is not a reality yet, I'm still creating, still learning. I have gotten to a point where I am happy what I have done so far. But creating a robust idea is honestly not that hard but creating a well rounded product that is easy to use, works how it should and feels finished is very challenging when you don't have the control over the process that you want to have.

Would I call myself a developer? I'm leaning towards "no". But I am having fun developing this idea that has been brewing inside my head for a long time.