Write code like a human will maintain it

One of the best things about LLMs is that they'll write code for you, all day long. Who cares about DRY? You don't have to be the one updating the same long conditional in four different files - the AI...

Scott Robinson··4 min read

Mod Logs: Save every change, thank yourself later

After over twelve years of building web and desktop apps, I finally added a modification log to one. One table. Only a few columns. It's some of the simplest infrastructure I've ever built, and the one I wish I'd had...

Scott Robinson··9 min read

Software companies are now like home builders

For most of the history of software development, developers were more closely related to machine shops than anything else. If you wanted software, you needed specialists with years of training and extensive knowledge. Building good software was hard, so the...

Scott Robinson··6 min read

Theseus Slop

There has been a very active debate (1, 2, 3) on how useful AI is for programming. It speeds up development, but sometimes at the cost of quality and understanding what you are building. I'm seeing more and more cases...

Scott Robinson··8 min read

Halt and Catch Fire

I have never watched the AMC show Halt and Catch Fire, and for a long time I only knew the title, but nothing about the show. Something about it always reminded me of programmer humor: somewhat dramatic, a little absurd,...

Scott Robinson··10 min read