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Zeitgeist — a spike by Chris Gathercole
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  2. Simon Willison — Creator of Datasette; co-creator of Django/

A new feature for my blog, built using my voice

Blog · Watch/Read · (gathered 2026-10-14)

  • Simon Willison built a new “Newsletters” feature for his blog almost entirely using voice commands with the ChatGPT desktop app’s Codex mode (GPT-6 Astra High) while cooking dinner, demonstrating the surprising effectiveness of voice-driven coding for multi-tasking.
  • The voice-driven process involved verbally specifying Django model, migration, view, template, and import requirements, with the model even knowing about Substack’s undocumented API for data import and designing page layouts based on vocal feedback.
  • While voice was effective for initial development, Simon switched to typing for complex tasks like setting up API keys for private GitHub repo imports and refining specific code implementations (e.g., changing from subprocess Git to API-based import).
  • Voice-driven coding agents, especially with visual previews and the ability to switch to typing, are powerful for multi-tasking and initial feature development, but traditional keyboard input remains more efficient for detailed work, error messages, and complex configurations.