Notes
Notes on building software well.
Short, practical pieces on what to insist on, what to leave alone, and how to tell the difference—readable without a technical background.
Engineering
Full-detail pieces for engineers: setups, migrations and post-mortems.
Building with AI
Short, practical pieces on working with AI as a non-engineer—and still building useful things, securely.
- 3 min read
Tell AI to Read the Documentation Before Writing the Code
Your AI may recognize the tool. That does not mean it knows how the version you are using works.
- 3 min read
Hiding a Page Does Not Protect Your Data
Removing a button from the screen does not remove someone’s ability to make the request behind it.
- 4 min read
Loading, Empty and Error States Are Part of the Feature
Your application needs to make sense when the data is late, missing or unavailable.
- 3 min read
Your AI Saying “It Works” Does Not Mean It Works
Ask your AI coding tool what it actually checked before accepting a task as finished.
- 3 min read
Name Colors by Purpose, Not Appearance
A button should know that it uses your primary color. It should not care whether that color happens to be blue.
- 3 min read
Never Let AI Build Your Authentication From Scratch
AI can add authentication to your application. It should not invent the system behind it.
- 3 min read
Why Every AI-Built App Needs Git Commits
Git commits give you a clear history of what your AI changed - and a reliable way to undo it.