Posts

🧩 I fell into a trap. One I’m often warning others not to fall into. Two of them, actually. 💻 The solution I’m building for one client isn’t necessarily a hard problem. There are existing solutions, but we want a simple MVP at lowest cost, so most paid services are off the table. With our custom integration needs, we decided to roll most of it ourselves. No, this wasn’t the trap. ...

This probably isn’t the place for it. But if you are following and supporting the project, and waiting on updates, then it is relevant. I’m guessing most solo devs go through this at some point, probably multiple times. And I suppose their “why” for creating their game is a big part of what keeps them going. But I am struggering right now. Doing this as a side project is hard. And knowing that I don’t have all the skills I need, and need to keep learning makes it harder. Normally, I don’t mind that. I enjoy a challenge. I welcome it. Growth happens outside your comfort zone. ...

The Promise vs. Reality of AI in Tech I’m genuinely excited about recent AI advancements. The tools continue improving, and we’re discovering more ways to optimize and enhance our work. I’ve personally found a good rhythm using AI to multiply my skills rather than replace or hinder them. However, I’m concerned about the industry’s direction with these improvements. Instead of creating better developers, we’re often replacing them. Rather than building amazing accessibility tools, we’re creating deep fakes and virtual companions. ...

Hey folks. Just a quick update that I finally have everything configured and running again on my new laptop. I’ve also just come off a crazy amount of overtime, so hopefully these updates will become more frequent. I’m still mostly working on UI tweaks, and adding VFX to the skills. The attached video shows the first attempts at the latter, with the healing animation mostly working (bar some timing issues) and the blades effect for the ultimate (which needs to move and scale a bit, not super visible). ...

🎯 This morning’s YouTube recommendation: someone coding purely by voice using Cursor agents and Windows dictation tools. My first thought? Not “wow, how cool!” but “seriously, is typing that hard now!?” 🙄 My second thought: “Good luck remote debugging a Linux server at 1am to fix what your AI buddy broke…” First we outsource thinking to AI, now the typing… it’s like nobody wants to actually do this job anymore! 🤦 But here’s the thing - after my initial skepticism, I realized this IS actually pretty cool. Just not for the reasons filling up your social media feed. ...

🤖 I love how every new LLM release triggers a wave of “AI is coming for your job!” posts, only for people to realize a few weeks later “oh, nope, sorry, not this yet” 😏 💡 While AI tools are certainly force multipliers for productivity, even with agents, they’re not replacing humans yet. Even the best apps I’ve generated with Bolt or Replit eventually need human intervention and fixing. 🎯 Hot take incoming: I find it amusing when people consider these simplistic example AI-generated “apps” as “real development”. Most modern webapps are already essentially just careful combinations of frameworks and styling, using existing tools that solve problems in generic ways. That’s not novel software development. ...

🌱 As 2024 enters the rear-view mirror and we look forward to 2025, this is usually an opportune time to reflect and plan. Those who know me personally are aware that 2024 was a challenging year with personal loss and challenges in the extended family, as well as some health issues, but it was also one with opportunity and challenges (some I chose for myself). 💼 I’m extremely grateful for the support I’ve received after starting PiForge. It’s been an amazing start for a new company, and while the last few months have been challenging with deadlines and extra hours, I look forward to what that means for the future. ...

Over a year ago a wrote a post about how I felt that, even though ChatGPT was making me more productive, I also felt it was making me lazier and dumber. Since then, I’ve been a lot more intentional about how I use AI tools, in particular generative AI tools and coding assistants. It should be a multiplier, not a replacement or crutch, which is something I see juniors and non-developers struggle with the most, but clearly we can all fall prey too. ...

Just a quick general update, I’m still working on bugs, I’ve got some ironed out, but found a few more small ones, should have a new build out by end of week. The plan after the bugfixes are to tackle the font issues that were raised, as well as resizing the UI to make free up more space for visuals. For the latter I’ll probably look at moving more information to tooltips instead of a big info window. ...

Trigger warning: this is a bit of a rant. Also, it contains opinions. Specifically mine. If you are allergic to other peoples opinions, or likely to experience anger or hatefulness when hearing others opinions, this post is probably not for you. Also, if you actually are an Engineer, have a cookie. Intro I spend a large amount of time on interviews. Or I did, up until mid 2020, but whatever. Sure, it’s not as much as large corporations fielding thousands of applicants, but I’d wager more than the average startup. I’ve conducted a couple hundred interviews myself, and I’ve been interviewed a couple ten times. ...