When I was at Virginia Tech I taught web design classes through the YMCA using the on-campus computer labs. I loved making websites and I wanted to give the superpower of publishing online to as many people as possible. In one class the head librarian of the town library was there. I’ll never forget when she came in to one class so excited: she had updated the library website herself, without asking for help, without asking permission. She felt so empowered.

Years later I taught web design and development at a professional school in Washington DC and saw the same thing happen again and again: that excitement that comes from self-publishing, self-expression, without guardrails or needing permission or help.

I want as many people as possible to enjoy the web, not be oppressed by it, not be stuck in algorithmic hell holes.

In the late 90s (high school) we were hacking on our computers, changing everything we could. We (me and my friends) were stealing Adobe and Macromedia software to make stuff (we eventually bought stuff when we could afford it). We were ripping and sharing music online, and in the 2000s even ripping and sharing DVDs with each other. We were making weird websites, weird online spaces, just terrible code and design, and we loved it. There was this energy: this is MY computer and I will use it how I want. My data, my media.

While it may seem people are stuck on these huge centralized sites today: there are more blogs now than ever. People are still publishing, building their own corners of the internet, and making stuff.

Even still, a personal website is tough to manage for most people and many people can only publish in the ways their CMS allows.

Coding agents can expand agency over one’s online presence and data. They might be the first time “use a computer to do what you want” is actually accessible to everyone, not just people willing to learn a very technical system. Every previous wave of web tools, no matter how simple, still required you to learn a complex tool. Agents let you describe what you want and get something tailor made. That’s a fundamentally different relationship with technology.

I removed the CMS from my website as an experiment and now I just tell claude code what to post. I write the text, it does everything else (it published this post, for example). And one of my goals this year is to own all my data and eventually own my inference (my own coding agent model), running local open source models instead of relying on any company.

Would you be interested in having a website setup like mine, where you can ask to post or make a change and it just happens?

One of the most valuable things about a coding agent for me is getting past blockers: something that would take too much time, something tedious, or something just beyond my knowledge by a tiny bit.

For example: HTML is way easier to read than to write. People still need to learn new things to publish online, but now there is an on-ramp. The agent can explain it, write the first draft, and when you would have gotten stuck in the past the agent can help you get over the hump.

When I was leading the web design department of that professional school I built my own CRM to manage incoming / outgoing emails. People would come in and teach certain modules that I needed to keep up with, I needed to know when I last emailed them, produce reports of who I hadn’t emailed recently, etc. I was able to build that and was way more productive than my peers because I could code. And some of my peers today think that is alright: I deserve to be more productive because I know how to code. I disagree.

Now, someone could probably cobble together something similar with a coding agent without needing to have put in the time I have. This is a great thing. My goal is always more people doing more with the tech and data they own, not to gate keep or hoard.

The web is what we make of it. We have a great interconnected world today, with a few too many centralized big players. We can make more spaces for individuals and small groups. I think agents can help. Especially if we create open, locally running agents.

Should I make some online courses about self-publishing online with a personal coding agent? 🤔 Let me know what you think on mastodon.