Recruitingai / ai_coding
Coding with AI
Builders on what it really takes to ship a product with AI coding tools.
Builders on what it really takes to ship a product with AI coding tools.
Problem to Solve
When you try to build with AI coding tools, it’s hard to find a plain account of what the work is actually like. Most of what’s online is either a polished demo or a warning. The useful middle, what it costs, where the tools fail, and what you still have to do yourself, usually stays private.
Unique Value
This book collects first-person stories from people who used AI coding tools to write code and ship a real product, often for the first time. Each chapter follows one builder and one project, from start to finish. When contributors are willing, it includes the numbers: time, cost, and where the tools broke down.
What You'll Gain
A practical picture of what it takes to ship with AI coding tools: what helped, what slowed people down, what they had to write by hand, and what it took to get the product out. These are accounts you can measure your own project against, from people who actually finished.
The feeds are full of AI hype and AI panic: “I shipped an app in ten minutes,” or “developers are done, keep up or get left behind.” Both are selling you something. Neither shows what building with AI coding tools is actually like day to day. This book is the honest version, written by the people doing the work: what it took to build and ship a project from start to finish, with AI handling part of the code.
Most books and courses on coding with AI teach the tools. This book is different: a group of builders, each walking through one product they shipped with those tools, costs included.
This is an open anthology. We set up the book; contributors write the chapters. Each chapter is one builder writing about a product they shipped with AI coding tools. There’s no fixed format. If you want a starting point, you might cover what you set out to build, the tools you used, where they helped, where they broke, what it cost, and what shipped. But that’s a suggestion, not a requirement. The slots fill as contributors join.
You built and shipped a working product with AI coding tools, and you’re willing to write about how it went, including where the tools fell short.
You decide which accounts go in and in what order, and you keep the book honest, especially about what AI did and didn't do. As the book takes shape, you become its lead, with the final say. You know this space well enough to tell a grounded account from a sales pitch.
You work with a builder to draw out what happened and turn it into a clear, honest chapter. The words stay theirs; you help shape them. You're comfortable interviewing, and good at turning a messy build into something readable.
This book was started by ThePeopleBook, a platform for collaborative nonfiction. We organize the book and bring contributors together; the writing is theirs. The book is about building software with AI coding tools, but any writing help we offer comes from people, not AI. If a contributor wants help, a writer or editor on the team works with them, and the piece stays in the contributor’s own voice. We’re not the builders here. That experience belongs to the people who shipped these products. We’re starting this book to collect honest accounts of what it takes to build and ship with AI coding tools. The book is currently looking for a lead. Once the team forms, that role, along with full authority over the book, will pass to a suitable contributor. If you’re interested, write to [email protected].
Leader