Hi all,
I do code on my own without AI, but in all honesty, I’m not that great (I’m a junior dev at my job, and don’t have a lot of experience). I always use AI to explain things to me, not code for me. I made that my mission, so I don’t let it think for me because I want to learn. It explains things very well and I’ve been learning a great deal.
Today, I decided to test it out. I asked it to build an app for me that works on KDE Plasma, my favorite DE.
I use some appimages for some apps. I tried appimagelauncher and gear lever and had some issues with them.
I want to integrate appimages into my system. So, I did a small workaround where I created a small script in ~/.local/bin that has one line after the shebang exec /<path to app image>/<appimage>. Then created a .desktop file that points to that script. I made one for Suyu and VIA and they both worked. I wanted to do it for more apps, but it got repetitive, so I gave AI some requirements and told it to add what’s necessary if needed.
I’ve never programmed in Python, and it chose Python. lol. Ok, let’s go with it. It made a pretty nice app. The app does 5 things:
- Creates that little script I mentioned earlier
- Creates the .desktop file for that app and makes it point to the correct things (script, icon, startupWMClass(this is so the app will still launch after pinning it to the panel)…etc)
- Copies the appimage into a “appimages” folder in the home directory
- Adds an icon of your choosing to the app
- It makes everything executable
I had it package the app into an appimage (that’s something I’ve never done before and it was pretty freaking cool to learn) and I’m planning on making an .rpm and a .deb packages of it, too.
The honest part. I feel a tiny bit of shame deep inside. But then I look at it and I see an app that could help some people. Who cares how I created it? I have always wanted to contribute something to the Linux world, and this feels like it.
What I’m asking for: your honest opinion. Should I feel that little shame? Should I put it up on GitHub? It would of course be GPL licensed. Maybe some folks want to make it better or contribute or fork it. I love open source and I feel like this could be useful to some.
So, hit me.
Thank you
IMO if it works for you then there’s nothing wrong with using AI this way. I wouldn’t recommend it myself but you do you. No need to feel guilty.
Well the one thing that kinda wrong about it is the immense energy usage of most LLMs. But you aren’t putting an artist out of a job or anything like that.
Appreciate your input. I just wanted to test it out with code this time. I generally have it explain code concepts for me instead of hunting online, and it actually does explain things very well.