Where did Go4Words come from?

In the spring of 2025, Dan Cawley was laid off alongside 44 colleagues. Seeking intellectual stimulation and a new challenge, he conceived Go4Words while exploring the potential of AI-assisted game development. Borrowing a MacBook from a friend, he began coding—initially leveraging DeepSeek to establish the game’s core structure before discovering AlexSidebar, a powerful Xcode extension developed and maintained by Daniel Edrisian.

This tool proved invaluable, offering features such as automated code implementation, Git snapshot backups (particularly useful for overlooked commits), and seamless integration with multiple AI platforms—including Claude Sonnet 4, ChatGPT, DeepSeek and Gemini. For developers building Apple applications in Xcode, AlexSidebar comes highly recommended.

Professionally, Dan’s diverse background spans roles as an enterprise systems engineer, systems administrator, software QA tester, and even fishing coach. While his experience is broad, he had not actively worked as a programmer for many years prior to this project. You can contact him at dncawley@gmail.com.