GenAI Series: My Tryst with AI-Assisted "Vibe Coding"

Building a Web App from Idea to Deployment (And the Reality Check) - Process, Key Takeaways and The Job Market

In the last few posts on GenAI, I talked about the GenAI architectural journey and prompt engineering fundamentals.

For this third installment, I wanted to take a more practical approach by experimenting with "vibe coding" - the trending practice of developing applications primarily through AI code generation.

Setting aside my regular work tasks, I challenged myself to create something completely new: a web application that helps users determine whether it's financially advantageous to pay off their mortgage early or invest that money instead. I planned to generate the core React code using Claude, then deploy the finished product to a free hosting service like Vercel, all while minimizing manual coding.

Let's see how this AI-driven journey unfolded.

Are you ready to level up your LLM skills? Check out the Generative AI Engineering with LLMs Specialization on Coursera! This comprehensive program takes you from LLM basics to advanced production engineering, covering RAG, fine-tuning, and building complete AI systems. If you want to go from dabbling to deployment? This is your next step!

---

Generating the Core Application with Claude

My first step involved prompting Claude to generate the React code for the mortgage vs. investment comparison. I approached this iteratively, building up the functionality piece by piece. Also, here's a glimpse into the key queries I used.

Query 1: how to calculate amortized principle and interst on loan table

Query 2: Create two scenarios. One where I invest 200 gbp on top of payment amount(at 7 percent) and one in which I pay off 200 as a prepayment of loan at a 4.18 percent. Thje loan amoiunt is 450000 and loan tenure is 30 years.

Query 3: Please add what would happen to the 2395.33 if I keep on making the payment towards investment for remoaning 4 yr 6 mo. Also give me total equity at end of loan and at end of 30 years.