Since November 2025, I have leaned into the idea that I could create software solutions. Nothing fancy, definitely not “enterprise grade”.
Point solutions. Limited function, designed to solve one or two problems. Mostly, though, for me. Making the solution commercially viable hasn’t been a goal.
You might be wondering, “Why Tim? Why wouldn’t you create a product that people might enjoy using?”
My answer might surprise you.
I’m a bit selfish.
Here’s how I see the experiments I get to run. They generally fall into one of 3 categories:
- For personal use. I build it, I break it, I fix it, and I evolve it.
- For public collaboration. I build the initial “idea.” Evolve it to point toward a direction I would like to see it go. I release it for people to build on and/or make it their own.
- For my colleagues. I create a solution to solve a problem for me. Proof of concept to “minimal viable product-ish”. I share it so my colleagues get the benefit of lowering or removing work friction.
Don’t get me wrong about the three points above. I could go further, but why?
I’m trying to learn a skill that I don’t fully understand. English is my language for communication. Not Python, Java, C#, C++, or another programming language.
Allow me to take you on a journey.
As a boy growing up in Central California, my childhood was pretty boring. Farmland, football, and cruising cars Friday and Saturday night. We lived between Bakersfield and Fresno, just off Interstate 99. Life was fairly simple until . . .
My Dad took me to the International Farm Equipment Show when I was in elementary school. We walked by an exhibition that had an Apple Macintosh on display, and that was the moment when my fascination with computing began.
I purchased my first computer with money I had save from my newspaper route. It was a Timex Sinclair. My Dad (really me) won a raffle at the same farm equipment show that brought me my second machine, a Radio Shack TRS 80.
For all my desire, I could not figure out how to effectively write code to make programs that worked. My parents found a tutor who helped students learn how to program over the summer break; however, I became frustrated trying. The BASIC programming language was beyond what I could learn fairly quickly.
Later, in high school, I tried again. I enrolled in a programming course for a semester. I faced off with BASIC again. Despite Mr. Chen’s great teaching style, I just couldn’t memorize the rules for making the language “work” in my mind.
For me, the good news was I maintained an affinity for computing. It has stayed with me to the present day and has always been a part of who I am and what I’m passionate about. Computers help humans solve problems more effectively.
November 2023, a month marked by the entry of ChatGTP into broad human awareness. I will spare you, dear reader, the history lesson, as we are living in the ripples of “commercial” generative artificial intelligence, or gen AI as I refer to it.
Gen AI is shaping up to be one of the MOST disruptive technologies I have experienced in my lifetime. And yet, it is also one with high potential to unlock human potential. My story is evidence of where this might be headed.
To put it into perspective, I currently have over 20 repositories saved on GitHub. Many are “open,” shared with the public. As well, many are private. Most with “code” stored in them. A few that are working, some that are in progress, and a handful that are just beginning.
I share this to write that gen AI has brought me back to my childhood struggle. Trying to understand programming languages. Making heads or tails of syntax, grammar, punctuation, and the structure rules just does my head in sometimes.
And yet, for all the frustration I experience trying to make scripts and functions work, I am making progress. Slowly, I am moving toward competence. Not with a goal of becoming a professional software engineer or developer, but to understand how things work below a beautiful user interface. And to build empathy for the “builders” on the development teams I support as a “business”-focused team member.
Selfishly, I get great enjoyment out of building my own solutions. I get to apply engineering rigor to my own projects. I am able to document my thoughts in the repository. There is an allowance for orchestrating a simply thrilling outcome for me.
As well, I use my newly found “superpower” to inspire others, like you, to join me on this journey. If you have watched any of my videos, you know how clumsy I am on camera as I describe what is happening and/or my take on why I work the way I work. There is no shame in being an “amateur” developer when you are sharing with the world the “art of the possible.”
I finally feel capable of building ideas I settled on never seeing the light of day.
It is both bitter and sweet for me to have written the prior statement and posted it publicly. I shared a longer-form version of this thread with a few people, including my wife and our daughters, over the last week or so.
To close out this post, I issue you a challenge:
Consider joining me on this learning journey. Use my GitHub repositories as inspiration, (tim-dickey (Tim Dickey). Set up your own integrated development environment. Struggle through the process of learning how to make the pieces work together.
Open you mind and entertain the “art of the possible”. Ignore the critic in your head that might tell you this is foolish or that you might look stupid. Consider what you might create for your own enjoyment.
Use a method like BMAD (Welcome to the BMad Method | BMAD Method and bmad-code-org/BMAD-METHOD: Breakthrough Method for Agile Ai Driven Development) as part of your creative work. Stumble, trip, fall, and get up again and again. It will be OK as each of us starts the same way, looking ackward and feeling silly.
Search YouTube to find videos that walk you through these processes. I have many posted on my channel that may assist you, www.youtube.com/@TimDickey.
If nothing else, remember this. I will be here to cheer you on. I am just a few yards or meters ahead of you!