Essays on AI, engineering and Rails
Honest takes on code, AI, and what actually works
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Latest ·
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5–7 minutesThe Rise of Wasteful Resources
Read essay →: The Rise of Wasteful ResourcesWe used to be proud of making things small. Now the default is to throw more tokens, more context and more compute at every problem. Why AI waste became normal, what it really costs, and how to get the craft…
Recent essays
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When 200,000 Lines of AI Code Disappeared and Nothing Broke
A team deleted 200,000 lines of AI-generated code yet maintained app functionality, highlighting the pitfalls of unchecked AI development. AI may accelerate chaos in weak systems, making existing issues worse. Effective engineering…
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Why AI Can’t (Yet) Write Maintainable Software
In the past few years, large language models (LLMs) have burst onto the software development scene like a meteor bright, exciting, and full of promise. They can write entire applications in seconds,…
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Returning to the Rails World: What’s New and Exciting in Rails 8 and Ruby 3.3+
It’s 2025, and coming back to Ruby on Rails feels like stepping into a familiar city only to find new skyscrapers, electric trams, and an upgraded skyline.The framework that once defined web…
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What You Should Learn to Master but Never Ship
Every engineer should build a few things from scratch search, auth, caching just to understand how much complexity lives beneath the surface. But the real skill isn’t rolling your own; it’s knowing…
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AI Vibe Coding vs. Outsourcing vs. Local Developers. What Really Works Best
The way we build software is changing fast.You can now code alongside AI in real time. You can hire an offshore team across time zones. Or you can build with local developers…
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?? → BI → ML → AI → ??
AI’s past and the future Where acronyms in business come from, what they sold, who won, and what might come after “AI” Acronyms are the currency of business storytelling. They compress complex…
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The Vibe Code Tax
Momentum is the oxygen of startups. Lose it, and you suffocate. Getting it back is harder than creating it in the first place. Here’s the paradox founders hit early: Both paths kill.…
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Is AI Slowing Everyone Down?
Over the past year, we’ve all witnessed an AI gold rush. Companies of every size are racing to “adopt AI” before their competitors do, layering chatbots, content tools, and automation into their…
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20+ Years as a CTO: Lessons I Learned the Hard Way
Being a CTO isn’t what it looks like from the outside. There are no capes, no magic formulas, and certainly no shortcuts. After more than two decades leading engineering teams, shipping products,…
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