My ARSE® process for building apps with coding agents:

[A]mbitiously create by handing an agent a HUGE task to do over hours/days
[R]age at your computer as you uncover all its stupid decisions
[S]culpt the app by fixing things in shorter, bursty sessions
[E]njoy what you built

I think the iPhone Duo might serve me well in the Post-Programming Era. Now that 90% of my work is remotely coordinating Codex and Claude from my phone, I need a desktop-class browser more than I need a full-size laptop. Carrying your computer just interrupts the agents, anyway.

Gonna go on record one last time and say that I hope Apple names its folding phone the iBook.

Maybe it's because I got to see it in IMAX, but I really liked Christopher Nolan's Castaway reboot.

Casting Zendaya as Wilson was a bold choice, though.

First Astra impressions: it's like Fable, but faster.

If you value your time, I can't see why you'd drive a coding agent with anything less than a Fable/Astra model. They produce so much less rework.

Asked Codex and Claude Code to each try their hand at a tricky Core Text layout issue for Japanese vertical writing:

GPT 5.6 Sol xHigh: 1,581,445 tokens and 2189 lines changed
Fable 5 medium: 37,000 tokens and 1 line changed

Fable's solution worked, Codex just made a mess.

/goal is a special command for OpenAI Codex in which it will keep working toward whatever goal you set until it gradually convinces itself that the stated goal is not what you wanted but rather some much easier objective was the real goal all along.

Talking about a conversation you had with an LLM is like telling people about your dreams: absolutely unacceptable no matter what.

Many of you sent feedback about your experiences with agents at work—but it was all too positive! I want to hear about some goddamn disasters of team & organizational dysfunction, too! Send in your (anonymous) horror stories, please! justin.searls.co/feedback

Do you work on a team or at a company where most people are actually using agents in earnest? I'd love to hear your experience for a piece. Quick e-mail, call, whatever. Hit me up with my fancy new feedback form: justin.searls.co/feedback

Now that I stand to gain very little financially from posting correct takes on the Internet, I find myself less motivated to post correct takes on the Internet.

"You can't afford bad engineers anymore." blog.florianherrengt.com/ai-removing-middle-class-software-engineering.html

In 2025, I bought four WD Black 8TB NVMe SSDs, slammed them in a Thunderbolt enclosure, and set them up as a 32TB Raid 0 volume for my Mac Studio.

Price in April 2025: $2,199.96
Price today: $5,836.00

Felt stupidly expensive at the time, but now I feel like a genius.

I realize this is Very Rude, but I've noticed a lot of the people who think AI sucks at writing code never seemed very good at writing code themselves. At this point, if you can't get it working, it's probably a skill issue. seangoedecke.com/llms-reward-expertise/