How much software do you build for yourself these days?

Question

With the cost of building software continuing to drop, what have you found yourself doing more: using other people's software, or building it yourself?I was thinking about this... I've built our family's financial system (it started as a simple budgeting tool, but now it tracks everything), a Mac app to create and edit videos, quite a few developer tools for personal use, a bunch of apps for my kids, some games, and so forth.All of these already have plenty of commercial offerings in the market, and some have open-source alternatives, but the level of personalization I get by building them myself beats any argument (IMHO)!Interested to see what others are doing. :)PS: I've been writing software for 8 years (5 of them professionally).

fco356pal · Accepted Answer

Been writing code for 15 years. Now, I spent all my time defining specs, creating tests, and validating Claude&rsquo;s/ChatGPT code (not reviewing, but validating with tests). The speed of development and quality of code is just amazing.Doesn&rsquo;t mean I don&rsquo;t use existing code. In fact, LLMs tend to be great at finding existing libraries and reviewing potential sources should always be part of your prompt. Writing code from scratch is good for prototyping, but existing libraries tend to be much more robust and battle tested

softwaredoug · Answer

In some ways I'm building too much software. It's too easy to get distracted by vibe coding a replacement for some SaaS I rely on. Only to have it be an 80% solution, without polish, and weeks later I'm back to just using the SaaS.It's never been easier to get nerdsniped into silly work.

theflyinghorse · Answer

I built a screen recorder for myself with LLMs. A calorie tracker. Now building this everything-webframework in Odin that's inspired heavily by BEAM's ideas (its a creative process for me, I don't have an end goal in mind)