Or certainly, what some of us might like it to be.
I have often envisioned a Coda solution while away from my office. These inspirational thoughts entice me to walk through the approach and invariably I arrive at the threshold of Packs. And that’s when I begin to see constraints that I wish were not there.
In contrast, when I conjure a new approach that doesn’t emanate from or for Coda per se, there are no constraints except my own skill gaps. And even that is easily dealt with through marketplace dynamics. For every skill gap I may have, there are a few dozen very skilled developers ready to help me and one of them is Ghostwriter. This is the realm of Replit.
Build software collaboratively with the power of AI, on any device, without spending a second on setup.
The Coda Packs development environment is essentially Replit without the steroid-like immersive development experience that includes pretty much everything you could need for creating good software. This approach will soon be common place as the planet transitions from a few tens of million developers to well over a billion developers.
As I continue to learn and use Replit, many of my observations about AI’s existential threats to job displacement seem to be increasingly validated. This one in particular comes to mind ( PREDICTION: AI Will Trigger an Explosion of New Software Developers). It was penned without influence from a deeper awareness of Replit, but certainly inspired by AI itself. Dan shipper awoke my need to draw similarities to Coda’s Pack development model. In his recent essay (What Comes after SaaS?) he exposes a growing pathway to software development that seems both logical and already occurring.
Bespoke apps for everyone—customized by AI
Ergo, millions of markets of dozens. Or, a billion markets of one.
Simple enough.
What’s This Article Really About?
As much as I would enjoy a narrative about ways to make Packs better, my objective here is to explore how custom apps for everyone could happen. And why Coda needs to embrace this new horizon without hesitation.
Replit’s founders believe AI will transform everyone with an idea to become a software developer. A good example is NodePad, a simple marrying of AI with mind-map-like visualization. This is not much different from @Mario_Mijic’s AI At Work template (AI Mind Maps). NodePad is an ideation tool that uses mind-map-like visualizations. Mario’s template can be used for ideation as well with one big shortcoming - manual integration steps required to actually render the mind map.
With NodePad, the ideation process is unsurprisingly AI-driven. This is an ideal use case for artificial general intelligence. But the entire solution begins and ends in the visual spectrum of nodes in a brainstorming topic.
I suspect Mario would leap at the chance for his Coda template to be equally visually interactive. And I’ll bet that was on his mind as he broke new ground developing a pathway that blends Coda AI with mind maps. I have as well and both of us probably came to the same realization.
You can’t Get There From Here
If anyone can explain to me how Mario (for example) could create a unified AI-driven mind mapping solution that avoids the fractured steps of copying and pasting between AI outputs and rendering inputs, that would be wonderful. I’m pretty sure it’s not an easy path or possible at all.
Saleh Kayyali, the creator of NodePad is an interaction designer, not a software engineer. Replit transformed him into a software developer and Replit not only helped him manifest his idea as an application, it provided the underlying AI integration needed for the app features. And it provided him with all of the infrastructure elements seamlessly and ready to support his app vision.
Beyond SaaS
While Packs are similar to Replit in a few ways, Coda templates are a lot like Replit as it begins to chip away at current SaaS business models. As Shipper points out…
“Making the app available for many users at once requires a lot of up-front effort. You need to build login systems, a database architecture and code that accounts for multiple users, you need to deal with keeping user data secure, and you need to build lots of settings screens so that customers can configure the product. The more time goes on, the more money and effort you’re going to expend building customizations for users, instead of building core product improvements.”
Coda Templates are well-positioned to take advantage of the move toward millions of markets of dozens, and even a billion markets of one. Templates can shape-shift to meet specific requirements without the burden of SaaS dependencies standing in the way. Individual innovation thrives.
Data Sciencey Stuff
I’ve often said that Packs should support Python. As a computing society of people, data science is seeping into everything we do. New demands are already at our doorstep with the need to transform data into shapes and aggregations that are suitable for LLMs. Packs are woefully unprepared to support these new requirements.
Packs need to be more like Replit. Or, perhaps Coda should consider how to fully embrace Replit.
Thoughts?
The links are very interesting. I did not know NodePad until now.