I build a surprisingly high amount of software these days; most are projects for work, some are projects for myself.
After starting with zero knowledge, I have over corrected and feel that with a Claude subscription and a coffee, I can build anything. And maybe there is some truth to that, but there is a high likelihood that “anything” is going to be a steaming pile of garbage.
Fortunately, there is a whole world of smart people out there who have done projects in the past, and shared their code online. It’s all open source, so nothing stops me from just cloning their projects and tinkering with it for my particular use case.
This method is FAR superior. Yes, there is a time for innovation. But more often, the time is to do something that works. That’s true for cooking, art, software, hiking, and much, much more.