<written by a human being>

In November of last year I paid for a Cursor subscription for the first time, and since then my timid steps into getting to know what has become so popular today - vibe coding - began. And since then I’ve already changed my approach to development several times: right now I mostly use Claude Code, but that’s not what this is about.

What real things have I managed to do since then, things that are actually the result of my work with AI tools?

The first thing I did using vibe coding was writing scripts that allow me to transcribe video and audio notes that I regularly record, and from which I then create text content. They make it possible to recognize speech in recordings and even separate it by participants if it’s a dialogue. That is, for example, when I record a meeting, afterward I immediately get a transcript of the dialogue, which I can then place into a knowledge base and extract from it later when needed.

Next, I rebuilt the studio’s website and stopped paying for a site builder and for hosting, because it turned out to be essentially unnecessary. I picked a technical stack that lets me do this for free and on a modern framework. Moreover, I found a way - which I was embarrassingly unaware of before - to host websites for free, which is exactly what I did. And on top of everything else, the site also scores a 10 out of 10 in Lighthouse performance tests.

There's a lot more, but I know you don't like a ton of text, so let's stop here for now.

<written by a human being>

The final episode of my course on creating content with artificial intelligence came out on YouTube yesterday. This is a series of short video tutorials where I show how various tools can be used when creating content, including writing articles, transcribing notes, creating reader avatars, your authorial voice, formatting content for different social networks, and many other interesting things. All of this is also accompanied by written lessons in my newsletter, links to which are also in the video description. And in the text lessons, there are already all the prompts that can be copied, detailed instructions, and a detailed description of how to use all of this.

There are still several more lessons ahead that will come out specifically in newsletter format, because there were initially more of them than the videos themselves. There are lessons that are without video, text-only, so all the videos came out faster. But if you want the complete set, then head to the newsletter.

When will crypto go up again?
The next day after you sell all your holdings.

When we talk about vibe code, we all by default imagine a web application, a SaaS website, or a mobile app. I thought, what if we use vibe coding to make a full-fledged desktop application? Why doesn't anyone write about this - has everyone really stopped using good old software that you install on your PC and use peacefully?

This is exactly what I've started doing - a completely offline application, fully autonomous, not requiring internet or a monthly subscription, working on Windows or macOS. Let's see how vibe coding handles this.

I've never seriously dove into the world of desktop software. At university we learned old Delphi, on which we wrote small desktop applications with databases and other delights. But of course, this never went beyond academic projects.

Since then, I've been completely absorbed for more than a decade in web development - various frameworks, network technologies, data transfer protocols, and so on.

Desktop software is a whole new world that has suddenly opened up to me.

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<written by a human being>

Choosing a technology stack when writing a desktop application is no less important than when developing web applications.

But since a desktop application runs in an operating system, first and foremost you need to think about who will be using this application, on which operating system it will be installed. This also imposes limitations on the technology stack that will be used.

However, here, as in web and mobile applications, there are frameworks that allow you, using a single codebase, to compile the final application for different operating systems. For example, the one I'm using can be compiled for both Windows and macOS.

Since my application runs on Python, PySide6 was chosen as the UI framework, and Nuitka as the compiler.

<written by a human being>

A whole new brave world opens up when you start working with desktop software. Here are programming languages that can directly work with PC memory, with the processor, a variety of compilers.

There are also databases here and, naturally, an interface part which, surprisingly enough, is very connected to web, because in modern desktop applications the front - that is, the external visual shell - can be written in TypeScript or using JS libraries. But of course, there are also a bunch of native frameworks to choose from.

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<written by a human being>

The architecture of an application being developed for desktop depends on the key functions of this application.

For example, my application will use ML functions. And for ML there are different programming languages that are tailored for it to a greater or lesser extent.

For example, everyone knows that Python is very well suited for ML, so if the main functions of the application involve working with ML specifically, then it's logical to choose Python libraries and compilers for the main language, which will then assemble it into the final program.

<written by a human being>

A curious fact about many modern "desktop" applications: I'm writing this intentionally in quotes because I want to say that they are essentially not desktop applications in the primary understanding, but use embedded browser engines that render a web interface.

This is done so that it's easier for developers to write one front-end that's reused everywhere, regardless of the system where it's running: whether you're using the software application in a browser or opening a native application.

For example, ChatGPT or Claude applications are built on the same principle and display a loaded web interface using the same principle as when loading internet pages.

Such applications, naturally, won't work fully offline. At the same time, by the way, they use a local database that stores the client state, but there's no point in storing the dynamic data necessary for the main business logic, since it's loaded in online mode.

Overall, there are a huge number of examples of such applications that enjoy great popularity. For example, Steam and Discord are also built on the basis of web interfaces, rather than as desktop applications in the original sense. Although Steam's backend is still hardcore C++.

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<written by a human being>

For some reason we've forgotten about good old offline desktop applications that work without the internet, that work fast, that don't require a network connection to load something or to generally work normally and fully.

We have internet almost always up to 100 percent of the time, but the charm of the speed and clarity of response to your actions of full-fledged offline desktop applications that don't require downloading anything from the network - this is actually a different level.

<written by a human being>

When you work with a web application, an obligatory part is its cybersecurity. Because, of course, you want to protect the server on which the application runs, all the data that's in it from attacks by malicious actors.

When you develop offline desktop software, it's necessary to protect it from decompilation or, in simple terms, disassembly where you can literally view the source code and also access the database itself.

Of course, 100 percent protection from this doesn't exist, but the following mechanisms are applied.

For example, obfuscation of program code, which makes its analysis difficult. Further, compilers that make decompilation or its reverse engineering difficult. Database encryption. There's also a technology stack that's initially more resistant to decompilation.

When choosing architecture, all of this is also extremely important to consider.

<written by a human being>

Desktop software licensing, it turns out, is also a whole story.

There are different options for how licenses can work.

I'm selecting options for my application, which should work completely offline. And one of the options that's clear to me is online activation with a request to an external license verification service.

To verify the license, you can build a worker that will query a database of generated keys and check for their presence. Such a worker can be set up, for example, on the basis of Cloudflare Workers. This is, of course, simplified for understanding, and a lot needs to be added for everything to work reliably and securely.

However, there are also offline activation and licensing schemes that are based on cryptography, hardware protection keys, and time-based licenses whose validity is checked locally without connecting to the internet.

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<written by a human being>

Who else is tired of endless monthly subscriptions and paid SaaS in the age of artificial intelligence?

When I'm increasingly using free open source tools because I can simply deploy them for myself easily with the help of AI agents, or just write the software I need for work myself.

I thought, why don't we return to the roots, to good old software that you pay for once and use for life.

Yes, maybe it's not as interesting from a business point of view, but how cool is it from a user's perspective!

You don't need to worry that you'll be charged every month and budget for it. No, you simply lay out a small amount of money once, which, as a rule, doesn't exceed the cost of a monthly subscription to modern services, but you need to pay it not every month, not every year, but simply once.

And then you have a working application that may not even be connected to the internet at all. And there won't be a surprise in a month when you suddenly wake up and can't use its functions.

This is exactly the path I decided to take. The application can be purchased by paying for it once. Pretty crazy for 2026, right?

<written by a human being>

Curiously, it seems that in the world of web development, the pendulum has swung from builders and no-code solutions back toward code.

For the reason that AI agents can't fully work with no-code tools, since these are closed platforms, and they don't give access to their source code, don't allow editing everything through the command line. And simply, using text in one way or another, which is the key method of interaction with AI, doesn't allow fully creating solutions and products there with the help of artificial intelligence.

But at the same time, it's now become even easier to write some script or application in code. Because from a developer's perspective, it's already easier to write a prompt in your own language than to dig through complex builder interfaces.

You write a series of needed prompts, compose a technical specification that will be fully taken into account, and after several iterations with corrections, everything will be executed and implemented on a code base.

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<written by a human being>

Here's what I've noticed about products used in work: those parts of the information system that can be edited using the command line, including server settings and everything that happens inside it, are, in principle, accessible to artificial intelligence. You just need to provide the appropriate access.

But to edit an application on Bubble, no access will help.

And even if you simply ask artificial intelligence about how to fix one issue or another, the answer in almost 100% of cases will be incorrect, because there's a huge number of nuances in the platform itself that are unknown to artificial intelligence, because they simply weren't documented in any way, and simply aren't described anywhere.

Thus, the answer will simply be a hallucination.

And secondly, since it's a builder, there's a lot of specificity there that relates specifically to the current project. From a builder you can assemble any Frankenstein's monster, and it's impossible to account for all the nuances that will emerge with one refinement or another from a simple technical specification or indication of an error.

<written by a human being>

How are no-code solutions feeling in the age of AI?

Today there's nothing left but to continue manually editing and fixing systems implemented on the basis of no-code platforms. Some of them already allow partial configuration through artificial intelligence, but only if the platform itself embeds AI into its engine, which, for example, Bubble is doing.

All of this, in my opinion, will lead to either new builders appearing that are AI-first, which should become the logical continuation of all these no-code solutions, or they themselves will begin to remake their architecture to primarily be tailored for working with AI agents.

But this is in any case an order of magnitude more complex, because it's essentially changing the foundation under the house, which implies its complete disassembly down to the very base.

Well, and the last option - they completely die from lack of necessity, since it's already become easier to write prompts in native language and get a ready product than to mess with endless workflow settings or craft responsive design in a drag-n-drop editor.

What do you think will happen?

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