FORWARD THINKING

Feb 20, 2025

Built with AI

Dev

Design

Life

Timothy Nice

“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” — Wayne Gretzky

Forward Flash

We took a week off for vacation, but I’m more excited than ever about our direction. Almost every conversation I have with developers and designers reinforces the need for direction, encouragement, support, and guidance. AI can’t replace things like people skills, mindset, mental health, and figuring out how to move forward in life and career. No matter where this project takes us, I know that Daniel and I are passionate about helping people, building software, and making a difference.

5-Minutes Forward

This week, challenge yourself to:

  • Try out an AI coding tool like Lovable.dev to see how it fits into your workflow.

  • Evaluate where AI can create efficiencies for you—what parts of your process can it speed up? Where does human creativity still matter most?

  • Think long-term—how will your role evolve if AI becomes a major part of software development?

The future isn’t about competing with AI. It’s about learning how to use it to do better, faster, more innovative work. Until next week, keep building, keep learning, and let’s figure out the future together.

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Feb 20, 2025

Built with AI

Timothy Nice

“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” — Wayne Gretzky

0:00/1:34

Forward Flash

We took a week off for vacation, but I’m more excited than ever about our direction. Almost every conversation I have with developers and designers reinforces the need for direction, encouragement, support, and guidance. AI can’t replace things like people skills, mindset, mental health, and figuring out how to move forward in life and career. No matter where this project takes us, I know that Daniel and I are passionate about helping people, building software, and making a difference.

View All Posts

5-Minutes Forward

This week, challenge yourself to:

  • Try out an AI coding tool like Lovable.dev to see how it fits into your workflow.

  • Evaluate where AI can create efficiencies for you—what parts of your process can it speed up? Where does human creativity still matter most?

  • Think long-term—how will your role evolve if AI becomes a major part of software development?

The future isn’t about competing with AI. It’s about learning how to use it to do better, faster, more innovative work. Until next week, keep building, keep learning, and let’s figure out the future together.

Question

How should I prepare for AI’s impact on software?

My Perspective

Note: To go all in on AI for this post, the audio and my photo are both fully AI generated and trained based on me.

AI is shifting who can build software and how quickly ideas come to life. Much like how YouTube gave rise to a new category of creators outside of traditional film and TV, AI is opening the doors for independent developers, designers, and businesses to build software without deep technical expertise.

The result? A flood of junk software. But also a wave of new, innovative ideas from people who never would have been able to participate before. Businesses that ignore this shift will fall behind. Those that adapt will build smarter, faster, and with fewer resources.

For developers, AI will create efficiencies that let them focus on more meaningful work. The simple, repetitive code juniors used to cut their teeth on is going to be handled by AI, which means early-career devs will need to bring more to the table to stand out. It won’t be enough to just “know how to code.” Problem-solving, system architecture, and creative solutions will become the real differentiators.

For designers, this means the ability to bring ideas to life without having to learn all the details of coding. But it also makes understanding development more important than ever. The best designers won’t just make things look good. They’ll understand how things are built, how systems work together, and how to make smarter product decisions. Design roles will continue to shift toward product thinking, UX strategy, and even marketing, and teams will get leaner while scaling faster.

This shift won’t be smooth for everyone. Some will resist, believing AI is taking something away. It reminds me of when digital photography disrupted traditional film. There were purists who refused to switch, and for some niche markets, they were right—there’s still a place for handcrafted, AI-free work, just like there’s still a place for film photography. But in the mainstream, digital took over, because it was faster, more efficient, and enabled more people to create at a higher level.


Real World Example:
Building a Weather App with Lovable.dev

As a designer with no real direct coding experience, “I” recently built a fully functional weather app in just a few dozen prompts using Lovable.dev.  Buggy and still has a bit to go, but you can definitely see the trajectory is fully workable now vs some of the early AI coding tools I’ve tried.  Take a look at https://hail.lovable.app/ - This may or may not be broken when you take a look since it’s a fun little test I’ve been building.

Before AI, this would have been a massive undertaking, requiring weeks of learning or relying on a developer to build it for me. Instead, AI handled the technical execution, letting me focus on the actual product.

This is the shift we’re talking about. AI isn’t just making developers more efficient—it’s enabling non-traditional developers to build functional, well-designed apps in ways that weren’t possible before. The barrier to entry is lowering, and the speed of iteration is increasing.

This is the reality now. AI isn’t replacing developers and designers, but it is changing how we work. Those who learn to leverage it will be ahead. Those who resist will fall behind.


Lovable.dev Tech Specs for Scale

Frontend Technologies:

  • React (^18.3.1)

  • TypeScript

  • Vite (Build tool)

  • TailwindCSS (Styling)

  • shadcn/ui (UI Component Library)

  • Tanstack Query (Data fetching and caching)

  • React Router DOM (^6.26.2)

  • Lucide React (Icon library)

  • Recharts (^2.12.7) for weather data visualization

Backend & Infrastructure:

  • Supabase (Backend as a Service)

  • Authentication

  • Edge Functions (using Deno runtime)

  • Database

  • Real-time capabilities

External APIs:

  • Tomorrow.io Weather API

  • OpenStreetMap (via Nominatim)

  • Pexels.com for Background Videos


Additional Resources