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I’m a Web Developer based in Adelaide, Australia. Even though I have a Telecommunications Engineering degree and an MBA, coding is my passion and my new professional career focus. Developing applications for the web has become my drive.
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Damian Demasi's Blog
34 posts
Web Developer - I switched careers in my 40s - Writer of web development blog posts - I love to share Notion templates
Buy me a coffee!TL;DR: We’re no longer limited to using generic productivity tools. With the rise of AI-assisted coding and platforms like v0, Bolt, Cursor, and Windsurf, it’s now possible to build simple, custom tools (microtools) that fit the way you think and work. This shift is not just about convenience; it marks a deeper change in how we relate to software. We’re moving from using tools to making them. These tools aren’t always clean or scalable, but they let you solve your own problems without waiting for someone else to build the solution. That said, real programming knowledge still matters, especially when you're building something meant to last. AI gives us speed and leverage, but it’s skilled developers who make things work.
Organizing your ideas, tasks, or notes often means using a general-purpose app like Notion, Evernote, or Trello. These tools are sleek and flexible, but they come with an unspoken rule: you have to adjust your workflow to match how the tool wants you to think. They are powerful, but often lack the flexibility to fully adapt to your specific needs or preferences.
Now, something is shifting. AI has made it easier than ever to experiment, automate, and create lightweight custom tools on your own. With AI copilots, natural language interfaces, and frictionless development environments, you can quickly build microtools, which are small, purpose-built scripts or apps tailored to your personal workflows.
These tools aren’t designed for scale or mass appeal. They’re meant for you. That specificity is powerful, but it also comes with limits. They might break easily, lack polish, or be hard to maintain. Still, for solving niche or personal problems, they might do the job far better than a bloated all-in-one platform.
Instead of changing your habits to fit someone else's design, now you can create simple tools that match the way you already think and get things done. This shift is not just about replacing the tools you already use. It's about gaining control over how those tools work for you.
This new ability to quickly shape tools around your own thinking wouldn’t be possible without a shift in how we write code. That shift is best captured by the term "vibe coding.”
If you're not familiar with the term "vibe coding," here's a quick overview. The phrase was coined by computer scientist Andrej Karpathy, co-founder of OpenAI and former head of AI at Tesla, in early 2025. Vibe coding refers to a conversational, hands-off approach to programming that uses large language models to do the heavy lifting. Instead of writing code line by line, Karpathy explained it as: "I just see things, say things, run things, and copy-paste things, and it mostly works.”
Vibe coding is about getting quick, functional results from natural language prompts, with the AI generating most of the code. It's a fast, expressive, and surprisingly productive way to build, especially for throwaway weekend projects or exploratory ideas. That said, Karpathy himself noted its limitations. AI tools don’t always understand or fix bugs, and sometimes you're left experimenting until something works.
Vibe coding is not so much about writing perfectly structured code. It's more about moving quickly, trying things out, and learning through doing. You give up a bit of accuracy and detailed control so that you can experiment and make progress faster. For many people who build things, that trade-off feels worth it. It’s the perfect bridge between idea and execution.
The ecosystem of AI-powered tools has exploded, making the idea-to-app pipeline smoother than ever. What once took days now happens in hours, thanks to new platforms designed with builders, not just developers, in mind.
Take v0 by Vercel, for example (or Bolt, Lovable, and many others). It lets you generate not just UI components or full pages, but entire full-stack apps using natural language prompts. Want a dashboard with a few charts, a login screen, and a backend to store user data? Just describe it. v0 responds with React and Tailwind CSS code, and good business logic structured around a Next.js app. Once you're done, you can deploy straight to Vercel, with all the scalability and performance it provides.
For those who prefer to work closer to the code, tools like Cursor and Windsurf are redefining the developer experience. Both are forks of Visual Studio Code with built-in AI enhancements. They offer features like smart code generation, contextual refactoring, and natural language queries over your codebase.
You don’t need to start from scratch anymore. You can describe your app, vibe-code your way to a working version, and refine it with professional-grade tools.
This is why now is different. The boundary between idea and implementation is dissolving, and the time it takes to go from concept to working prototype has never been shorter.
Here’s the real unlock:
We’re moving from using tools to making them.
Instead of changing our behavior to fit the structure of existing apps, we now have the chance to design tools that match our individual needs. This may seem like a small shift, but it represents a big change in how we use and relate to technology.
For example, I used to track the progress on a personal programming project using Notion. I spent time trying to configure it to reflect the exact structure I needed to track the progress effectively, but it always felt like I was bending my process to fit someone else’s system. Now, I have a custom-built app I made in about half a weekend. It tracks and measures progress exactly how I want, lives online with its own database, and best of all, it’s shareable and open source. That means anyone can use it, and if they want, they can fork it and adapt it to suit their own workflow.
Even better, someone who doesn’t know how to tweak the code can still build their own version. With tools like v0 or Bolt, all they need is a clear idea and a few natural language prompts. Whether they want to replicate my app or build something entirely new, the entry point has never been more accessible.
In short, the tools are no longer the limit. Our creativity is.
Let me give you a concrete example. As I mentioned before, one of the microtools I built was designed to help me track progress on a side project more intuitively. It’s a dynamic task management app that runs on Next.js that lets you create projects with distinct areas and specific work items under each one.
Each project has a central dashboard featuring a progress bar that updates in real time as you mark items complete. This makes it easy to get a visual snapshot of how far along you are and estimate how much work still remains. You can add tasks, assign them to areas, sort them, and even import or export your data.
Everything is backed by Supabase, which handles both user authentication and database storage.
And here’s the part that still surprises me: I built it all using v0 by Vercel over half a weekend. What would have taken days of boilerplate setup and manual UI coding came together almost effortlessly with the help of AI.
This tool is now part of my daily workflow. It fits how I think, helps me stay on track, and reminds me that solving a personal pain point can be both useful and satisfying.
The best part? It’s not trying to be a full SaaS app. It doesn’t need to be. It’s just what I needed, and that’s the beauty of microtools.
You can try out this app, called Project Pulse, by visiting https://www.projectpulse.tools/ and creating an account. If you're interested in exploring or modifying the code, the full source is available at https://github.com/Colo-Codes/micro-app-project-progress-tracker.
I’d love to hear your thoughts: how would you use it, and what changes or improvements would you make?
Vibe coding is fun. It’s powerful. And it’s a great entry point. But there’s a ceiling.
Sooner or later, you’ll want to tweak that AI-generated component beyond what the prompt allows. Or you’ll hit a bug the copilot can’t fix. Or maybe you’ll want to optimize performance or build complex logic that requires actual software understanding.
That’s when real programming knowledge makes all the difference.
Despite all the AI hype, manual coding is far from dead. If anything, it’s more relevant than ever.
Being able to read and tweak code turns you from a passive user into an active true creator. It’s what lets you move from “good enough” to “exactly right.”
If you combine a builder’s mindset with foundational coding skills, you become incredibly effective.
And if you find yourself enjoying this kind of tinkering and building, that might be a sign it’s time to dive deeper. You could build a real career doing this.
Vibe coding is excellent for small projects, weekend experiments, or solving specific personal problems. But it’s not a replacement for the structured practices required in professional software development.
If you're building something for yourself or validating an idea, vibe coding is a superpower. But when you’re working on production-grade software, especially if it will be used by real users, integrated into workflows, or scaled across teams, you need more than vibes. You need engineering discipline.
Professional projects demand:
Scalable architecture and maintainable code
Version control, testing, and CI/CD pipelines
Code reviews, documentation, and shared conventions
Performance considerations, security, and edge case handling
This is why vibe coding alone won’t cut it. You can use it to get started, but sustainable software requires real skills and best practices.
Companies don’t hire developers just to write AI prompts. They hire developers who understand the tools deeply and can apply them intelligently. When the software you build needs to be reliable, secure, and scalable, that depth matters.
AI is powerful. But experienced developers are what make it valuable.
So by all means, vibe-code your next side project or internal tool. But when it’s time to go pro, put on your engineering hat.
You don’t need to ship polished products. You don’t need to think in SaaS terms. You just need to solve your own problems, in your own way.
That’s the heart of microtools and vibe coding.
And with AI now helping us bridge the gap between idea and implementation, the only real limit is your curiosity.
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