Ben welcomes Ricky Robinett, VP of Developer Relations and Community at Cloudflare, and his eight-year-old daughter Fay for a chat about how AI tools are helping new developers get started and how to encourage your kids to try coding.
Watch Fay build a Harry Potter-themed chatbot with an assist from AI.
Cursor is the AI code editor Fay’s using. Get started with their docs.
Connect with Ricky on LinkedIn or X.
Shoutout to Stack Overflow user Mahendra Kulkarni, who earned a Lifeboat badge by answering How do I get current rowindex of a table using JavaScript?.
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Ben Popper Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Stack Overflow Podcast, a place to talk all things software and technology. Today, I have not one but two very special guests. I'm chatting with Ricky Robinett over at Cloudflare, but we're not really here to talk about his work today. We're here to talk about a tweet I saw of his daughter, Fay, learning how to code using an AI assistant. So Ricky, before we bring Fay in as a guest, I want to do a little level setting for the audience here. How did you learn to code and how long did it take to get to a point of fluency where you could make a web app or a website?
Ricky Robinett Oh my gosh, that's such a good and scary question. I remember being in middle school, and somehow, I don't know if it was a book or what, I found out you could make your computer beep with code. And I was super into music and so I would write all these songs with code and I was so amazed that the computer was beeping. So that was my first foray, and then I got Visual Basic probably freshman year of high school and I made a little side scrolling game. And then I probably didn't make a website until college, so a multi-year journey to get anything useful.
BP Right. I think I want to address the elephant in the room, which is that if someone learns to code or to create, let's say, software websites or web games using prompts instead of a lower level programming language, which is a weird thing to say about the highest level programming languages, do they lose anything? Is there some process of learning or understanding that they don't get that they'd have to get another way? I think a lot of people look at this and say, “Nice trick. You can do a few things, but you're not really learning the skills you need to become advanced in this field.”
RR So one of the things I think about in all developer tools is Time to Hello World. How quickly can you use an API, can you build a React app? And the reason I think that matters is it's the dopamine hit and you're like, “Oh my gosh, I sent a text message with Twilio, and now I want to understand how it works and what's possible.” And I think this is the same thing that it is an incredible Time to Hello World to the dopamine hit. I think it sparks curiosity and naturally people want to understand how it works. And so I think it is less of a replacement and more of an order of operations change.
BP I think that's a great point because if you're the kind of person who is maybe going to be an engineer in life, when you hit a wall here, do you go out and explore and figure it out and spend a few hours debugging or do you just sort of stop and go on to building the next toy app? That one might be a distinction that's worth drawing. Fay, are you eight years old?
Fay Robinett Yes.
BP Okay. Well, I thought it was super cool. Obviously, a lot of people in the developer world shared that tweet and it made the rounds. And today we wanted to learn a little bit more about both of you and then about your experience learning how to code. So Fay, Ricky, can you introduce yourselves to our audience?
FR I'm Fay. I'm eight years old, and yeah.
RR That's good, Fay. I'm Ricky, I'm 39 years old, and yeah.
BP So Ricky, how did you get started in software and what is it you do day to day at Cloudflare?
RR I started coding when I was probably in middle school, so just a little older than Fay, and kind of fell in love with it. I never thought it would be a career just because I grew up in Missouri, and at that time it was not cool to be a software developer and I wanted to do something cool. And then luckily, over time, I made my way to New York and software development got really fun and I made a career out of that for a little bit and then got into developer relations where I get to help developers find their ability to use software to change the world and that is what I do at CloudFlare. I lead up our developer relations team.
BP Okay, cool. So Fay, was doing software development something that you were interested in or was your dad trying to convince you to give it a try? What was the thing that got you started?
FR Well, I wanted to do coding. I always wanted to do it but then I went to Tokyo and I saw him make a chatbot with Cursor and then I was like, “Ooh, I want to try that,” and then I just was like “Oh, I love this.” I wish I got into this earlier on because I would probably have more ideas when I was younger.
BP Okay, cool. So Ricky, you did a demo in Tokyo with Cursor?
RR Yes.
BP Tell me a little bit about it.
RR So we had a meetup in Tokyo for Cloudflare developers, and as part of that, I did kind of a high wire act of, “What can I build in 15 minutes? Can I build a complete application from scratch using Cursor and Cloudflare?
BP So Ricky, you were like, “What can I build in 15 minutes with the assistance of an AI agent?” Any particular reason you picked Cursor? Give the audience a sense of what that is because I know there's tons of different options out there.
RR So I started using ChatGPT and Claude, and then over the summer I had a friend that said, “What are you doing? Use Cursor.” And he showed it to me and I got hooked. I think just the model of bringing the assistant into your IDE unlocked something in my brain. So no reason to show Cursor other than that I was stoked about it and it's fun to show people stuff you're excited about.
BP Nice. So Fay, you saw your dad doing that demo and you thought, “That looks like something maybe I could do.” So tell me about the first time you sat down with Cursor and did you have an idea of what you wanted to build right away?
FR So the first step I actually made was actually one of the best apps I ever made. My dad did help me a bit because it was my first time. I made a chatbot where you could talk to me and it had a cool background and there was a sidebar with your saved chats.
BP Nice. So how did the chatbot know what you wanted to say?
FR I gave AI some personality saying how I am. And it started as just a normal chatbot, it didn't have any personality, and then I said, “Have it be cute and funny,” and then it was like, “Do you want to play with dolls?” and I was like, “I don't play with dolls.” And so then I finally got it right, but you can't really get something to be the exact same personality. It wasn't the exact same personality because sometimes I'm super crazy and sometimes I'm just calm and sometimes I'm grumpy, and you can't get all of those things for a chatbot.
BP Yeah, it doesn't know how you're feeling that day, but it was enough so that it kind of felt like if the person came to the site and just said, “Hello,” maybe they’d feel like they were getting some of your vibe. So Ricky, walk us through that. For something like that, how do you go from natural language to that and what is happening in the background? Are you making API calls, do you need cloud hosting, is this all happening in the front end? What's going on with something like that?
RR So for her, I walked her through using Hono, which is a front end framework that I love. It's really lightweight, it's super clear. And so Hono on the front end running on Cloudflare Workers and making a request to Cloudflare Workers AI. And so I work at Cloudflare, so she got to learn all that stuff, but one of the fun things was that because you can use something called bindings and you don't have to use API keys or anything like that, she didn't have to leave the IDE which I think really helped her just get started quickly. Using an API without API keys made it nice for her to wrap her head around it.
BP I once tried to build a simple dog park app with an older version of ChatGPT, and leaving to get an API key and going over to Firebase to figure out who was going to host stuff, all of these things added a lot of friction. And then maybe I'd come back and ask it, “Hey, I've got this bug. Can you help me debug this and debug that?” and it was sort of bouncing around, but to have everything self-contained sounds really cool. So Fay, how many apps have you built since then? Is this something you do often?
FR Sometimes I just mess around, so I've probably built about 30 or 40.
BP Wow.
FR But some of them aren't that good. One of them I don't think I even did anything in them. It's just blank because I was like, “Actually, no.”
RR Fay, can you tell about the app that your friends want to use that you built to help you?
FR So my real best app is called Help Morning. So usually my mom usually does all this stuff, so then I had a list of tasks I had to do, and then you can check them off and you can change the tasks, and you made it so different people could use it.
RR I helped you add user accounts.
FR And you can see how many points you got each day. But there's two more things I want to add. First of all, you can't change the shop. Oh, and there's also a shop where you can buy stuff with the points. The button isn't working.
RR Oh, really? I can help.
FR And there also isn't a total of points, it's just points and then it's just the day, but you can count up all your points from all of them, but you need to have enough points to buy this stuff.
BP Gotcha. So this one has a lot of different stuff. First of all, it's a to-do app, which is everybody's favorite thing. For a lot of developers, it’s a fun thing to build because everybody every day needs a to-do app, and you never get everything done so there's always a better version. Everyone always has a better mousetrap. Then you added user accounts, so now this is a multiplayer thing, it's not just you. And then you added points, so now you've gamified the app. This is key to get people to want to come back, you’ve got to make them do a game. And you’ve got some e-commerce on there. People can shop? What can they buy with their points?
FR Well, I need to lower the points a bit because I realized that if you get all of the tasks together, it's just 31 points. And then I actually realized that you would have to wait a week just to get 300 points. And so I should lower the prices, but I actually have one that's not on there that I'm going to do that I really want. I want to get a folder for my drawings, because I also draw a lot. And there's also Governor's Island on there, which is 1,000 points. It's literally 1,000 points.
BP Cool. So Fay, has this interested you maybe in wanting to learn more about software development outside of using Cursor, or does it make you think that this would be a cool job? Or is it more just that Cursor lets you do fun stuff and making apps is something you like, kind of how you like drawing?
FR Well, I actually started writing in Vim a few weeks ago and I just make websites. I usually make them of lists of my favorite things and then I do details about all of them, but I never really finish it. I mostly do Cursor because I don't have to write it and I can make better games on that. And I also like writing on Cursor because it just guesses what you're going to write and then it's easier because sometimes I don't really know how the onClick button works and then the only part I know of it is– what's this called?
RR Tags.
FR Yeah, tags. And then I just put onClick and then it just guesses. Because I usually have it open another screen so it just knows because that's one of the most used things that an onClick thing does.
BP Gotcha. And so Ricky, you said you learned back in middle school. How would you compare the experience and where do you think kids today are going to go in their coding journey if they start out AI native?
RR It was funny, Fay asked me as she was learning with Cursor if this is how I learned, and I was like, “Fay, this wasn't possible six months ago. This is entirely new.” I think one of the amazing things about building software is that, even in my life, it just keeps getting easier and easier, and the more people that can do it and bring ideas to life, the better. I do think one thing Fay has done a good job at is learning how computers think and understanding HTML and JavaScript. And so I don't think we're yet in a world where you don't have to know how any of it works, but I think if you know the basics, you can get so much further and have so much more fun. Two years ago I could not have built an AI chatbot as fast as Fay can now, let alone 20 years ago.
BP Very cool. Go ahead, Fay.
FR Mommy used a bit worse version of Cursor, but it was kind of like writing in Cursor. It didn't have a chatbot. She used that. She was so surprised that I used Vim because she just used– what was it?
RR I forget. She used an IDE. Her mom also is a developer.
BP So your mom was impressed to know that you had actually gone into an IDE and done a little work in there, not just chatted with an AI agent. That's cool. So you're making stuff mostly for the web, it sounds like. Have you ever thought about trying to make something for a phone or a tablet?
FR Well, I've started making those games but those games usually take a long time. For example, Minecraft was Java. It was in JavaScript. It took, I don't know, seven years or something? Probably more.
BP Right, you're trying to keep things simple for now.
FR Yeah, but I tried to make a Harry Potter game where you went to Hogwarts, but then this bug came. There was transfiguration class and then I needed to turn a white ball to a gray rectangle and it was just disappearing, but then the AI literally said that the rectangle was showing and it never says that.
BP Frustrating. Do you know about posting questions on Stack Overflow? Maybe you should post it there.
RR You want to try that?
FR But I don't know what computer it's on.
RR Oh, your code?
FR Yeah.
RR Oh, yeah. We have to find what computer that app is on.
BP Got it, got it. Well Fay, I want to just say thanks for taking the time to chat, and it was super cool to see what you built and also to hear that it's not just like you did it once but that it's something you get a lot of fun out of over and over again, so I hope you keep going. Ricky, anything else you want to add for folks who want to check out more stuff that she's built or learn about you? What should they do?
RR Just follow me on X or LinkedIn. I'm Ricky Robinett. I'm easy to find. And I'll also add– so many people have asked me, “How do I get my kids into this?” And Fay, I don't know, maybe you have thoughts on this, but my biggest thing is that this should be fun. And like drawing or playing, it shouldn't be trying to be her career. And so I think my biggest thing I'm trying to stress to everyone is that she has fun with it, that's great. When she stops having fun, that's when she'll take a break and we're not going to push it. And she's having fun with Vim right now and that's awesome, and at some point when she gets frustrated and she can't exit out of it, that Vim window will just stay open forever and that's where we'll be.
BP Right, I’ve got a Stack Overflow question for you. I did a little bit with my kids and we built the game Snake and we built Pong. And I think, Fay, maybe you can relate to this, they love being able to do something quickly in the code and change the colors or change the speed or change the size. That ability to think of something and then see it happen on the screen was really exciting for them.
RR What do you think, Fay?
FR Yeah. And I have a thing that could be a way to get people's kids. This is kind of rare, kind of. It's how you got me into it.
RR Okay.
FR So one of the parents either is in or goes to a presentation for Cursor and then they'll see it and I think every kid will probably just be like, “Wow, I want to do that.”
BP Instead of saying, “Hey, do you want to work on this?” or “Do you want to learn this?” you're saying that when you see somebody building something, that can be pretty exciting and then you want to try it yourself.
RR And do you know what, Fay? I don't think they need to go to a presentation, because do you know what a lot of people have told me?
FR What?
RR That their kids have seen you building with it and they are inspired by that.
BP Yeah, that's true. I thought it was pretty inspiring and I saw a lot of people sharing it on social media, so hopefully it's gotten some other kids excited.
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BP All right, y'all. I'm going to take us to the outro. As we do, we want to shout out someone who came on Stack Overflow and helped to share a little knowledge or spread some curiosity. Awarded 22 minutes ago, a Lifeboat Badge to Mahendra: “How do I get the current rowindex of a table using JavaScript?” Thank Mahendra for his answer and saving that question from the dustbin of obscurity, and earned a Lifeboat Badge. As always, I'm Ben Popper. You can find me on X @BenPopper. You can email us with questions or suggestions for the show if you want to be a guest or hear about a certain topic. It’s podcast@stackoverflow.com. And if you enjoyed today's conversation with Ricky and Fay, why don't you subscribe and then you can hear more in the future.
RR I'm Ricky Robinett. You can find me on X @RickyRobinett or on LinkedIn at Ricky Robinett.
FR Hi, I'm Fay, and same thing.
RR Yeah, same thing. You just have to follow me to follow her.
BP Yeah, send your tweets to Ricky and they'll get through. Ricky, it was so great to hear from Fay. She seems really excited about this. I have been spending a lot of time checking out Cursor AI and Replit and v0 just trying to learn how these different things work. People say, “This is the new hot one,” or whatever, there's a faddish thing about it, but whenever I'm looking up Cursor, I'm getting video clips featuring Fay. “This girl built a Harry Potter chatbot, how amazing is that? It's going to revolutionize your life.” I want to ask, how much do you feel like she's learned and how much of this do you feel like is what we spoke about at the beginning of the episode, just kind of a gateway in that's creating excitement, creating a passion for making software, that's definitely happening, and then later in life as she gets older, she might pick it up or she might dive into some books or she might take a class?
RR I think it's a blend of kind of both of those sides. Some of it is just exposing her to different things and planting seeds and seeing where it goes. And then on the other side, one of my favorite things was after the video went viral and she was building a lot with
Cursor, she said, “I want to really understand HTML. I really want to understand JavaScript.” So now she can hand-code an HTML website, and it's not a Harry Potter chat app, but she makes fan sites. It's like the Geocities stuff I’d do in high school. And so she definitely is starting to pick up more and more of those foundational things because the curiosity was sparked.
BP That's such an important point and I'm glad to hear that. I think there was an Andrej Karpathy quote talking about the difference between no code and half coding and full coding, which some of us may recognize from three years ago or whatever, and half coding is this interesting blend of, “I need to know what to ask for sometimes. I need to know why I'm running into this wall. And if I learn some of the basics myself, I'm going to get really far really fast with the help of this AI and this prompting.” And so that's kind of a cool new dynamic that didn't exist before and can bring in a really broad array of people who may not have had easy access to this skillset before.
RR Yeah. I think developers sometimes like to woodshed and talk about how painful it is to make stuff, but that isn't a very inclusive perspective. And if it's painful to make everything, not a lot of people want to make stuff. And I want to live in a world where anyone who has an incredible idea, whether they're 8 or 80 can bring that idea to life, and so that's what gets me excited.
BP Back in my day, you had to carry those punch cards uphill both ways.
RR Exactly.
BP All right, everybody. Thanks for listening, and we will talk to you soon.
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