Learning to code with AI - Andrew's experience with Replit

Andrew Davison is a self-taught developer who is using AI to advance his coding knowledge. He’s already sold an app he made with Python and deployed on Replit. Now he’s worked on a newsletter, Replit Builders, to share his knowledge.

Before I share Andrew’s story, I’d like to thank Nulab for sponsoring this edition!

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Hey, so can you introduce yourself Andrew?

I’m Andrew. I grew up in the UK, but I’ve lived in Hungary for the last 11 years. I ended up here unplanned after some time backpacking around Asia and Europe - I just didn’t want to go home!

I’m an indie hacker, constantly imagining, testing, growing and occasionally scrapping new business ideas. My main source of income is working as an automation expert, helping companies build stuff in Zapier to automate their workflows.

Why did you learn to code? 

Back in 2010, I dropped out of a Computer Science degree. I wanted to enjoy it and thrive - but unfortunately, I just couldn’t get the hang of actually coding. The syntax, the infrastructure and all the pretty technical requirements to get something working - it was beyond me and I grew frustrated.

From there I drifted into a ‘career’ in London, first interning at a design agency, then doing sales - first for a media company and then a company that built Facebook apps for brand marketing - where I got a little exposure to code again (allbeit only selling it!).

After travelling and settling in Hungary I discovered Zapier and started using it to automate a small teaching business I was trying to build. I quickly got good at it and pivoted into an automation consulting business which quickly thrived. There was plenty of demand from businesses but very few people offering it as a service.

That ticked along, but in the back of my mind, I was always frustrated that I never mastered coding. A few times I dipped into some tutorials, but every time I would hit a wall pretty quick and leave it.

Then ChatGPT arrived…

How did you learn coding?

I’m a ‘learn by doing’ type, and I tend to learn a skill quickly if there’s something immediate I need to do with it. So when ChatGPT took off and I found out it could code - I knew it was time. I thought of something useful I needed - in this case, an app to download all my Airtable bases as CSV files in one go - and asked ChatGPT how to do this.

It recommended Replit as my coding IDE and to use Python and Flask. It then started giving me code which I copied by hand over to Replit. I’d test it, get errors, paste them back to ChatGPT, get new code… rinse and repeat. It must have taken a good 15 hours, but I finally got an app that worked (and I even went on to sell it for a small amount of money a few months later).

Anyway, doing it this way I’ll admit I didn’t really understand any of the code it gave me - but I got curious. So I started asking ChatGPT to explain bits to me and it sort of made sense. After a couple of hours of that, I could tell in a very pseudo-code way what was happening in my app.

Then I stepped back. I downloaded a few daily coding practice apps for my iPhone and started going through those - learning the basics, objects, loops, variables, logic, functions, methods etc. Alongside that - still assisted by ChatGPT - I started to build myself other small apps in Replit. 

At this point, I’d call myself a novice coder. But now when I see the code ChatGPT creates for me it makes sense and I can make adjustments and fixes to it without need AI all the time.

How should people learn to code in the AI era? 

Exactly the way I did! AI tools are amazing at coding, so I think for many people, other than learning the basics, it’s not required to go too deep with learning code. Instead, leverage these tools to code for you and learn by exposure to the code they create - having AI explain things to you and even ask it to ask you questions about the code to test your knowledge. 

Build stuff that’s useful for you, or interests you. Look around at the things you do manually every day and automate them using code. You’ll find this approach to be quite addictive, with an immediate benefit that makes you want to keep building. 

If you’re already using a tool like Zapier look at some of your workflows and try and rebuild them with code - this will also give you exposure to working with APIs which is another key skill.

How has your life changed since learning to code?

For the first time ever, I feel like I have the ability to (at least try) to build anything I can imagine. Before I could code I got very good at hacking together processes in Zapier, even if they were a little convoluted. But there were always roadblocks or stuff that couldn’t quite be built with just Zapier. Now, being able to code I’ve been able to automate new parts of my business and improve how I automate other parts - I’m less reliant on Zapier these days.

And as for my Zapier consulting business - it’s enabled me to build things for my clients that I want able to before - either with code steps in the zaps I build, or by creating standalone apps for my clients.

My income has, and still is, in the high 5-figure range. In Hungary that lets me live a very comfortable life without needing to consult every waking hour I have. I have a lot of time left over for other ventures and ideas as well as experimenting with app ideas in Replit. My goal in the next year would be to build a SaaS app that can earn me some recurring income.

Can you tell us about coding with Replit?

Replit is the perfect coding tool for people of all skill levels. For an advanced coder, it has all the features you’d expect from any other IDE, but with its two AI coding features Agent and Assistant, someone with little or no coding ability can easily and quickly build a fully featured app.

Another great thing is Replit’s one-click app deployments, meaning you can host what you build right in Replit. Many beginners I’ve spoken to find it very hard to take code they have written in one app and get it deployed and working on a hosting service. With Replit this isn’t a problem.

What are your career goals for the future?

As I said, building a SaaS app that makes some money would be fun! Recently I got an email from UptimeRobot telling me they’re ending their free plan and moving people to a pay monthly plan. I’m now using Replit Agent to build a stripped-down clone and I plan to make it a pay-once product for indie hackers to monitor their project websites.

Other than that I’m currently growing a community for other people building stuff on Replit. I want to create a place where we can vibe together, share ideas and problems and get support from the Replit team. In 3 weeks I’ve managed to get 250 members and have started publishing a weekly newsletter.

Join here