Queuing can be fun

If you build apps while you wait

It's summer holiday time again. This year we're in southern Europe. Which is lovely. But rather hot for someone used to the overcast drizzle of Scotland (I'm looking forward to the kids finishing school and being able to have a holiday sometime other than July).

For the second year in a row AI has played a major part in our holiday - Gemini and Claude have done a lot of the planning, albeit with fairly regular, but desperately polite disagreements. And now we are travelling they are somewhat useful travel companions.

Being on holiday has prompted me to reflect how much has changed in a year. And also how much hasn't.

One big change is Claude Code Web. Last year I built artifacts with the chat UIs. This year I don't use the chat UIs as much. Instead I talk to Claude and ChatGPT. And I build websites. Lots of them. There's a trip guide. And a guide to Barcelona. Both tailored just for us.

I like to go running every morning when we're on holiday. In the past I fought with ad laden websites. But no more. This year I built my own app. It suggests routes of lengths that suit me. And then provides a moving map as I run and tracks my stats. Cool.

Then there are the pass-the-time websites. Some are serious - the life of stars, diesel electric propulsion for cruise ships. Others are, well, a bit silly - a site on nettles, another on paint drying. There are games too. Estimation Whist, Quixo, a Japanese/Wordle crossover. A stylized version of Risk. A Spanish language learning app. All of them built with scraps of subscriptions while standing in queues. Queuing to board a plane. Queuing for a bus. Waiting for my family to get up. It's not just fun stuff; proper work is getting done too - testing is happening, bugs being fixed and verified. I watch dashboards, read daily reports and juggle subscriptions.

Our SDLC is increasingly driven by a set of detailed prompts, often many pages long. We refer to them by shortcuts. Design is 2D. Implementation 2E or 2L. And then an 0H to integrate it to main. Or a daily 1A and 1B to generate and action daily reports. It's, well, different. But it suits my brain just fine. That probably tells you all you need to know about me :).

Some things work better than others. I love the running app. I know more about nettles than I ever expected to. I like the Risk game.

Others are, well, AI-y. The native AI games are quite rubbish. AI still lacks good spatial and temporal awareness. I don't want a game that takes 4 hours per turn. Or where I have no idea how to play - even after reading the instructions.

And the maps? Well… they remain, erm, interesting. This is from Fable 5, ostensibly today's strongest model.

GPT5.5 is no better. Here is the xhigh variant explaining how a waterpark tipping bucket works. It might just be me, but it seems to require a different set of laws of physics.

Notch up to the strongest model - Pro with extended thinking - and we still have a three armed mutant child (although they look happier). Sadly the explanation is still confusing with odd physics.

Claude advised on food in Barcelona. We asked it for a cheese toastie, and it confidently ordered for us. What turned up was cold cheese on toast. Not quite the melted cheese variant we had in mind…

This is the first year that work has followed me on my hols. Partly that's down to the inconvenient timing of Fable 5 - got to make use of it before the 7th. And partly because our startup is incredibly busy. And partly because it's easier than ever to get things done. I don't (yet) feel I'm missing out; rather just suddenly able to use the inevitable dead time that comes with travelling much more effectively.

Of course, if I were a salaried employee I might feel differently about spending my free time working; this way of working doesn't jive well with the 9-5. But as someone self-employed it's awesome.

I’ve also had a bit more time to read. And it’s becoming clear how much stuff, especially on LinkedIn, is written by AI. The tells are easy. It's not this, it's that. Or the thing is. Em-dashes galore. The "uncomfortable truth" is that AI writes long sentences with big words that can struggle to make any meaningful point. Having to re-read sentences trying to extract meaning is a strong hint of AI. And if you are unsure Pangram will help you. Ironically many of these AI written LinkedIn posts are about AI replacing software roles…

I suspect in the coming months and years we’ll all get more attuned and able to spot AI writing. And increasingly turned off by AI generated content. The value in being human, is well, being human. If I want Claude's pov I can just ask it. I don't need it brokered by you.

And so?

We've come a long way in 12 months. The software industry is undergoing a massive change. The era of traditional, hand written code is coming to a rapid end. These days I wouldn't consider writing any code by hand; it feels like attempting to tunnel under the Alps with a toothpick. And yet, despite all the amazing achievements, more basic things - maps - choosing food - seem no further forward than last year. I suspect we are safe from AGI for a little longer. Ten years ago I could predict the next 12 months reasonably accurately. Now? I can’t even predict next week - I mean, who in their right mind would ever have thought queuing could be fun…