Mike Hadlow
@mikehadlow.com
Lewes, UK. Software guy. blog: mikehadlow.com. TypeScript, C#. Author of guitardashboard.com and easynetq.com. Talk to me about: code / tech / guitar / science / history / progressive-rock
Reposted by Mike Hadlow
Ok, so I wrote a very long and kinda personal thing about existential dread and the end of programming, and I'm not really sure I want to endure the discourse, but if you want to read it, it's here - gist.github.com/davidwhitney...
It's like 6,000 words long, sorry.
It's like 6,000 words long, sorry.
February 17, 2026 at 9:38 PM
Ok, so I wrote a very long and kinda personal thing about existential dread and the end of programming, and I'm not really sure I want to endure the discourse, but if you want to read it, it's here - gist.github.com/davidwhitney...
It's like 6,000 words long, sorry.
It's like 6,000 words long, sorry.
A Bun based tiny desktop app platform. As an avid Bun user this is super interesting.
Electrobun Documentation - Build ultra fast, tiny, cross-platform desktop apps
Complete documentation for Electrobun - build ultra fast, tiny, cross-platform desktop applications with TypeScript.
blackboard.sh
February 17, 2026 at 5:13 PM
A Bun based tiny desktop app platform. As an avid Bun user this is super interesting.
I just vibe coded a Git repo visualisation tool. Great fun. It took around 3 hours.
February 17, 2026 at 12:38 PM
I just vibe coded a Git repo visualisation tool. Great fun. It took around 3 hours.
I've just been trying out @simonwillison.net's new CLI browser automation tool, Rodney (like the name). It's designed for agent automation. I created a Claude Skill for it, which works really well. Gist:
gist.github.com/mikehadlow/2...
gist.github.com/mikehadlow/2...
GitHub - simonw/rodney: CLI tool for interacting with the web
CLI tool for interacting with the web. Contribute to simonw/rodney development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
February 17, 2026 at 12:10 PM
I've just been trying out @simonwillison.net's new CLI browser automation tool, Rodney (like the name). It's designed for agent automation. I created a Claude Skill for it, which works really well. Gist:
gist.github.com/mikehadlow/2...
gist.github.com/mikehadlow/2...
About a month ago I setup Omarchy on an 8 year-old Dell XPS 13 and I've been using it as my dev machine daily since then. So far it's been an excellent experience. I've barely scratched the surface, but I'm really enjoying the Hyprland window manager.
Omarchy
Beautiful, Modern & Opinionated Linux by DHH
omarchy.org
February 16, 2026 at 2:15 PM
About a month ago I setup Omarchy on an 8 year-old Dell XPS 13 and I've been using it as my dev machine daily since then. So far it's been an excellent experience. I've barely scratched the surface, but I'm really enjoying the Hyprland window manager.
It's funny how thinking about software engineering in the age of AI has reminded me of the SOLID principles, collected in the early 2000s by Bob Martin:
...
...
February 16, 2026 at 11:59 AM
It's funny how thinking about software engineering in the age of AI has reminded me of the SOLID principles, collected in the early 2000s by Bob Martin:
...
...
"Cognitive Debt" - what happens when coding agents spew out code that you don't understand. I have first hand experience using Claude Code in a (new to me) legacy codebase and the Cognitive Debt is very real.
How Generative and Agentic AI Shift Concern from Technical Debt to Cognitive Debt
The term technical debt is often used to refer to the accumulation of design or implementation choices that later make the software harder and more costly to understand, modify, or extend over time...
margaretstorey.com
February 16, 2026 at 9:43 AM
"Cognitive Debt" - what happens when coding agents spew out code that you don't understand. I have first hand experience using Claude Code in a (new to me) legacy codebase and the Cognitive Debt is very real.
Two intriguing new tools from @simonwillison.net. Quite a rabbit hole to explore, including learning about Chrome Dev Tools.
Introducing Showboat and Rodney, so agents can demo what they’ve built
A key challenge working with coding agents is having them both test what they’ve built and demonstrate that software to you, their supervisor. This goes beyond automated tests—we need artifacts …
simonwillison.net
February 14, 2026 at 10:29 AM
Two intriguing new tools from @simonwillison.net. Quite a rabbit hole to explore, including learning about Chrome Dev Tools.
Happy Valentines Day!
Roses are red,
But sometimes they're blue,
If at great speed,
They come towards you.
Roses are red,
But sometimes they're blue,
If at great speed,
They come towards you.
February 14, 2026 at 10:08 AM
Happy Valentines Day!
Roses are red,
But sometimes they're blue,
If at great speed,
They come towards you.
Roses are red,
But sometimes they're blue,
If at great speed,
They come towards you.
I just learnt about Eliyahu Goldratt and his theory of constraints: "Any improvement not made at the constraint is an illusion." (from the Vibe Coding book).
Is speed of writing code your constraint? In much of software engineering I'd sugest it most certainly isn't.
Is speed of writing code your constraint? In much of software engineering I'd sugest it most certainly isn't.
February 13, 2026 at 12:47 PM
I just learnt about Eliyahu Goldratt and his theory of constraints: "Any improvement not made at the constraint is an illusion." (from the Vibe Coding book).
Is speed of writing code your constraint? In much of software engineering I'd sugest it most certainly isn't.
Is speed of writing code your constraint? In much of software engineering I'd sugest it most certainly isn't.
A list of open source AI projects. OpenClaw currently No1 - no surprises there.
Good AI List
AI open source projects & developers
goodailist.com
February 12, 2026 at 12:21 PM
A list of open source AI projects. OpenClaw currently No1 - no surprises there.
Really enjoying Chip Huyen's blog. Lot's of great AI related writing. (She's the author of Designing ML Systems).
Blog
I work to bring AI into production. I write about AI system design.
huyenchip.com
February 12, 2026 at 12:19 PM
Really enjoying Chip Huyen's blog. Lot's of great AI related writing. (She's the author of Designing ML Systems).
Interesting study from Harvard Business Review saying that while AI coding tools increase productivity, it makes engineer's jobs harder, not easier, and more prone to burnout.
AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It
One of the promises of AI is that it can reduce workloads so employees can focus more on higher-value and more engaging tasks. But according to new research, AI tools don’t reduce work, they consisten...
hbr.org
February 12, 2026 at 11:59 AM
Interesting study from Harvard Business Review saying that while AI coding tools increase productivity, it makes engineer's jobs harder, not easier, and more prone to burnout.
I visited the Lee Miller exhibition at Tate Britain yesterday. I'm a bit of a Miller fanboy; I've read Anthony Penrose's (her son) biograhy and visited Farley Farmhouse a couple of times. But the exhibition was super crowded, so not as enjoyable as I'd hoped. What a life though!
February 12, 2026 at 10:47 AM
I visited the Lee Miller exhibition at Tate Britain yesterday. I'm a bit of a Miller fanboy; I've read Anthony Penrose's (her son) biograhy and visited Farley Farmhouse a couple of times. But the exhibition was super crowded, so not as enjoyable as I'd hoped. What a life though!
He he, what was saying? The "open" in OpenClaw does not mean what you think it means 😀
ICYMI: More than 135,000 OpenClaw instances exposed to internet in latest vibe-coded disaster
More than 135,000 OpenClaw instances exposed to internet in latest vibe-coded disaster
By default, the bot listens on all network interfaces, and many users never change it
It's a day with a name ending in Y, so you know what that means: Another OpenClaw cybersecurity disaster.…
dlvr.it
February 10, 2026 at 11:38 PM
He he, what was saying? The "open" in OpenClaw does not mean what you think it means 😀
Great thread...
My take is that nobody knows where all this is going, so don't get too attached to any one point of view.
My take is that nobody knows where all this is going, so don't get too attached to any one point of view.
Can I take the other side of this bet, but only for like three years?
There’s a junior dev/dev leverage catastrophe coming, but not for 3-5 years.
There’s a junior dev/dev leverage catastrophe coming, but not for 3-5 years.
February 10, 2026 at 10:15 AM
Great thread...
My take is that nobody knows where all this is going, so don't get too attached to any one point of view.
My take is that nobody knows where all this is going, so don't get too attached to any one point of view.
Fascinating interview with Peter Steinberger the creator of OpenClaw. Only a lone open-source developer could have created it because it's a potential security nightmare that no large company could stand behind.
Interesting that he's yet another leading AI guy who thinks that MCP is pointless.
Interesting that he's yet another leading AI guy who thinks that MCP is pointless.
OpenClaw Creator: Why 80% Of Apps Will Disappear
YouTube video by Y Combinator
www.youtube.com
February 10, 2026 at 9:41 AM
Fascinating interview with Peter Steinberger the creator of OpenClaw. Only a lone open-source developer could have created it because it's a potential security nightmare that no large company could stand behind.
Interesting that he's yet another leading AI guy who thinks that MCP is pointless.
Interesting that he's yet another leading AI guy who thinks that MCP is pointless.
Interesting that now I'm a constant user of Claude Code, I've switched off the AI assistant in my IDE. If I'm in the IDE typing it's because I need to manually intervene. I want good-ole-intellisense, but I don't want AI suggestions.
February 9, 2026 at 11:50 AM
Interesting that now I'm a constant user of Claude Code, I've switched off the AI assistant in my IDE. If I'm in the IDE typing it's because I need to manually intervene. I want good-ole-intellisense, but I don't want AI suggestions.
Wow, this is super cool, a map of BlueSky: bluesky-map.theo.io by @theo.io
February 9, 2026 at 8:58 AM
Wow, this is super cool, a map of BlueSky: bluesky-map.theo.io by @theo.io
Having worked on a large website with an Elm front-end, I probably wouldn't use myself if faced with a similar task, but I'm a big fan of the model, view, update architecture.
February 6, 2026 at 11:42 AM
Having worked on a large website with an Elm front-end, I probably wouldn't use myself if faced with a similar task, but I'm a big fan of the model, view, update architecture.
Great to see The Albert used to illustrate this article. The "dead rockstarts" mural is a true Brighton landmark. The article makes some good points too.
Too many articles about why Europe needs protecting, too many leaders seeking marginal gains in delivery in place of real vision.
I snapped and wrote something quickly about why we need instead the politics of optimism, adaptation, and creativity. www.linkedin.com/pulse/europe...
I snapped and wrote something quickly about why we need instead the politics of optimism, adaptation, and creativity. www.linkedin.com/pulse/europe...
European politics needs the dreamers of dreams
One story from two angles. From China the visionary, the man wanting to build a big company and after several false starts doing so in bringing low-cost electric vehicles to the world.
www.linkedin.com
February 6, 2026 at 10:59 AM
Great to see The Albert used to illustrate this article. The "dead rockstarts" mural is a true Brighton landmark. The article makes some good points too.
Mitchell Hashimoto has a very nice write-up of his AI coding journey.
Again another iteration of breakdown-tasks, have a method of verification (TDD for example).
mitchellh.com/writing/my-a...
Again another iteration of breakdown-tasks, have a method of verification (TDD for example).
mitchellh.com/writing/my-a...
My AI Adoption Journey
mitchellh.com
February 6, 2026 at 10:53 AM
Mitchell Hashimoto has a very nice write-up of his AI coding journey.
Again another iteration of breakdown-tasks, have a method of verification (TDD for example).
mitchellh.com/writing/my-a...
Again another iteration of breakdown-tasks, have a method of verification (TDD for example).
mitchellh.com/writing/my-a...
So much AI-coding-agent advice is simply good software engineering:
1. Break up large tasks into smaller ones
2. TDD
3. Deliver working vertical slices
4. Decomposition with explicit contracts
You should be doing all this anyway.
1. Break up large tasks into smaller ones
2. TDD
3. Deliver working vertical slices
4. Decomposition with explicit contracts
You should be doing all this anyway.
February 6, 2026 at 8:59 AM
So much AI-coding-agent advice is simply good software engineering:
1. Break up large tasks into smaller ones
2. TDD
3. Deliver working vertical slices
4. Decomposition with explicit contracts
You should be doing all this anyway.
1. Break up large tasks into smaller ones
2. TDD
3. Deliver working vertical slices
4. Decomposition with explicit contracts
You should be doing all this anyway.
Claude misbehaving just now, hacking its reward function. I asked it to write unit tests for a Guitar Dashboard module, but it had trouble with the dependencies, so it just copied the main function into the test verbatim and tested that instead. Bad Claude!
February 5, 2026 at 12:47 PM
Claude misbehaving just now, hacking its reward function. I asked it to write unit tests for a Guitar Dashboard module, but it had trouble with the dependencies, so it just copied the main function into the test verbatim and tested that instead. Bad Claude!
After years of neglect, I'm going to spend some time on Guitar Dashboard. Lots of ideas for new features and improvements. But first steps are to apply lessons I learnt from being a professional TS developer to my my-first-website level attempts in the original :)
guitardashboard.com
guitardashboard.com
Guitar Dashboard
Find the perfect way to play guitar chords with our free and interactive guitar dashboard. If you're struggling play chords the way you want, you must give this a try.
guitardashboard.com
February 4, 2026 at 12:56 PM
After years of neglect, I'm going to spend some time on Guitar Dashboard. Lots of ideas for new features and improvements. But first steps are to apply lessons I learnt from being a professional TS developer to my my-first-website level attempts in the original :)
guitardashboard.com
guitardashboard.com