Navigating Visions and Challenges in Engineering Development

Here’s the most compelling benchmark of AI progress: 

A task that took 60 minutes a year ago now takes 60 seconds.

In January 2024, Geoffrey Litt and I spent an hour coaxing ChatGPT and Replit to build an app live on my podcast.12 months later, Steve Krouse and I built the same app with one prompt in less than a minute. 

Steve is the cofounder and CEO of Val Town, a cloud-based platform for developers to write, share, and deploy code directly in the browser. We used Townie, Val Town’s AI assistant, to build an app to keep track of time on the podcast, take notes, and generate questions for the guest.  

Townie generated the app even before Steve could finish describing it on the show. As we demo Townie, we get into:

• Why Steve believes programming can rewire the way you think 

• The rise of the non-technical AI developer and what that means for the future of coding

• How Townie works under the hood, including the details of the system prompt 

• How Steve is evolving ValTown’s strategy as AI progress continues to unfold

• The power of small, dense engineering teams 

This is a must-watch for founders building AI-powered developer tools, and anyone interested in the future of programming.

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Timestamps:

1. Introduction (00:00:55)
2. How programming changes the way you think (00:03:24)
3. Building an app in less than 60 seconds (00:11:22)
4. How Val Town’s AI assistant works (00:17:19)
5. Steve’s contrarian take on the non-technical AI programmer (00:23:05)
6. The nuances of building software that isn’t deterministic (00:33:38)
7. How to design systems that can capitalize on the next leap in AI (00:39:05)
8. What gives Val Town a competitive edge in a crowded market (00:40:47)
9. The power of small, dense engineering teams (00:47:34)
10. How Steve is positioning Val Town in a strategic niche (00:52:26)

Links to resources mentioned in the episode: 

• Steve Krouse: https://stevekrouse.com/, @stevekrouse 

• Val Town: https://www.val.town/ 

• Townie, the AI assistant integrated into Val Town: https://www.val.town/townie/signup?next=%2Ftownie 

• Pieces on Val Town’s blog about how the team built Townie: How we built Townie—an app that generates fullstack apps, Building a code-writing robot and keeping it happy  
  The book by Seymour Papert about how programming changes the way you think: Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas