One of my small but satisfying projects here on Fickle Father is something I call the Hobby Rater — a simple tool that helps people score hobbies based on criteria like cost, time, difficulty, and enjoyment. The idea is to inject just a bit of structure into what is usually a highly impulsive moment of inspiration (or distraction).
When I first created it, I used a Google Form combined with a paid tool called Formfacade. Formfacade made it possible to calculate a total score based on the form inputs — something Google Forms can’t do natively. It worked great for what it was, but it required a subscription. Eventually I found myself asking: Do I really want to keep paying for this simple functionality?
The answer was no.
And sadly, when I made that decision, I was mostly just resigned to let the Hobby Rater System go along the wayside.
But with the development of AI, it gave me an idea: Can I use AI to recreate what Formfacade gave me, but without the subscription cost?
So I tried it.
Turning to ChatGPT
I decided to ask GPT-4 (via ChatGPT) if it could help me build it.
Here’s what I asked:
On my website, I explain a hobby rater idea: https://www.ficklefather.com/introducing-the-hobby-rater/. I used a paid webform that would spit out the total using this Google Form: [link provided]. I paid to use a software (by Formfacade) that would calculate the total score for me. The google sheet will not do that. I did not want to keep using the paid form, so I canceled it. Now I’m wondering if you can build a way for me to do that so I can host the forms and calculate the total?
And here was ChatGPT’s response:
✅ Yes — I can help you!
Here’s what you’d need to do…
ChatGPT then literally walked me through the entire process. It make me the code and I tested it and made tweaks as we went along.
My Foundations and Coding History
Since I’ve been tinkering on the web since about 2013, I’ve learned some very basic HTML and CSS. I know the general flow of an HTML webpage and can recognize the main parts of an HTML page. I have built basic HTML webpages from scratch, but I probably couldn’t do it without a resource in front of me.
I was also familiar with CSS and I know how to find selectors and modify styling.
Last, I knew that building web applications requires JavaScript, but I have never coded anything in JavaScript. Nor have I ever really looked into it to understand the structure or components of a js file. I just knew it existed.
At one point in time, I did consider switching to coding as a career. I even took some Codecademy courses. I just didn’t get that far before I felt like I was in over my head.
So that pretty much sums up the extent of my knowledge of coding.
AI helped me create what I couldn’t have created myself.
As mentioned, I thought that it would be cool to be able to create actual applications on the web. I considered whether I should change careers. But it was just not in the cards for me at that time.
So I know that I personally would not have ever taken the vast amount of time it would have required for me to learn how to code up the Hobby Rater System.
I just wouldn’t have ever done it.
But ChatGPT spit out the code I need to bring my idea to life in about 45 seconds.
Let me emphasize that even more: ChatGPT help me actually create something that came from my head and now exists in the real (digital) world. And instead of taking me months or years to learn how to create this, it did it in about 45 seconds!
That’s just unbelievable.
I feel like it has opened up a new world of creation
A new world of possibility.
And certainly new life to my flailing Hobby Rater System project.
Some of the Practical Lessons
Since this is my first ever experience using AI to help me create a web application, I thought I’d share a few lessons.
1. You are Tony Stark. AI is Jarvis.
You have to have the vision for what the project is. AI will provide suggestions and will give it what you ask for. But the better your vision on what you need, the better AI will be at helping you.
2. Download VS Code.
I was initially doing all the coding (and by doing, I mean copy/pasting or editing the code based on what AI gave me) in a Notepad txt file. Using VS Code makes the process so much easier.
3. AI can make errors–even typos
Sometimes the code would contain basic errors or the AI would “forget” something we previously had in there. At first I was like, “Hey! Why’d you do that?!” But it also in a weird way humanized AI for me a bit. Or maybe to put it another way — it made me feel better about the fact that I make typos, too.
4. AI can bog down as the conversation gets longer.
This has to do with something called “tokens.” Tokens are basically chunks of text (like parts of words, sentences, or even formatting). Everytime you submit something to AI and AI sends something back, the text chunks being exchanges are “tokens” that AI must process.
As the chat gets longer and longer, AI has more and more to recall and to review. An analogy might be if you are talking to someone and having them fill a binder with the information you provide. As you ask the person to refer back, or recall, or incorporate different portions of that binder, it becomes more cumbersome. That is also true for AI.
So sometimes it is helpful to break up projects into sections so you can start new chats.
Try It Yourself
I mean this in two ways. If you want to try rating one of your hobbies or projects, feel free to use the Hobby Rater System.
And if you think, “Hey! I want to build a web app!” You should try that too! AI can help you.
