I have lived through a few waves of tooling changes. If you write software long enough you get comfortable with the ground moving under your feet. The latest shift is vibecoding: pointing a capable model in roughly the right direction and steering it with context, examples, and taste. Tools like Claude Code, Codex CLI, and Gemini Code make that feel effortless. This post is less about what the tools are doing and more about how to use them without losing your engineering brain.
Look, I’ve built on a few different blockchains over the years, and I’ll be straight with you: most of them are a pain in the backside. Gas fees that’ll bankrupt you, smart contracts that feel like you’re programming with your hands tied behind your back, and consensus mechanisms that move slower than bureaucracy. But then there’s Hive, and it’s a completely different beast.
Hive is hands down the easiest blockchain to build applications on. Not because it holds your hand or abstracts away complexity, but because it gets out of your way and lets you actually build things. Here’s why it’s become my go-to platform for blockchain development.
This isn’t my first air fryer, but it’s the first one that feels like it could replace half my oven. The Ninja XXXL FlexDrawer is massive. It takes up so much bench space that it could probably apply for its own postcode. Moving it is a two-hand job, and once it’s on the counter, that’s where it lives. But here’s the thing: the size actually makes sense when you start cooking with it.
I finally wrote the book I kept threatening to write for a few years on and off: Why Developers Code In Dark. It is out now on Leanpub. You can grab it here: https://leanpub.com/whydeveloperscodeinthedark
This book looks at a thing many of us quietly do, shipping code late at night, and asks a simple question: why does working in the dark work for so many developers? The answer is not just “no meetings”. There is psychology, physiology, and culture in the mix, plus trade offs that deserve an honest look.
I like good tools as much as anyone, but the last couple of weeks around Anthropic’s Claude 4 family have been a reminder that you can’t build your working life on shifting sand. Models change, limits move, and entire features wobble without much notice. Useful? Absolutely. Dependable enough to be your only plan? Not even close.
What changed If you’ve been anywhere near Claude lately you’ve probably felt the turbulence. Some days are fine; other days you’re staring at elevated errors, partial outages, or features that feel half-broken.
For a long time this site hasn’t had comments. When I moved from WordPress to a static site generator, the old commenting system didn’t come along for the ride. The result was simple pages, fast builds, and a very quiet comment box that no longer existed.
I’ve gone back and forth on whether to bring comments back. Most days I enjoy the focus of writing and publishing without worrying about moderation. Other days I miss the conversations that used to happen underneath posts. I’ve had emails and DMs that would have been even more useful as public threads, where other readers could add context or correct me when I get something wrong.
I write software for a living, often as a freelancer/consultant. My faith doesn’t make me louder; it makes me clearer. It’s the thing that nudges me toward honesty, courage, and high‑quality work when nobody is watching.
I built a small app called Regex Battle. It lives at https://regexbattle.com and it turns regular expressions into a head to head game. You get a prompt, a timer starts, and your goal is to write a regex that meets the challenge before the clock hits zero. You can play against another person or against a bot if you want to practice solo.
Regex Battle is a PvP regular expression battle game with a bot and PvP mode. Each round gives you an objective and a set of example strings. Your job is to write a pattern that matches what it should and rejects what it should not. When you submit, the app checks your regex against the round tests and shows the result. Fast and correct beats slow and almost. Simple as that.
I learned early that a day job will keep you busy, but it will not always stretch you. If you want to move forward, you have to put in reps outside the clock. Not forever, not at the cost of your life, but long enough and often enough to build range.
I started in an agency. Fast pace, many clients, constant context switching. I worked late nights and some weekends because I wanted to get better. That is not a long term lifestyle and I do not recommend burning yourself out, but those seasons taught me how to ship, how to debug under pressure, and how to own the result. They also taught me to set better boundaries later. You can hold both truths: growth often requires extra effort, and health requires rest.
I have been cooking with the Meater Pro XL for a while now after coming from the original Meater Block. I loved the hands‑off promise back then, but the first‑gen hardware could be flaky for me. The Pro XL got my attention because the probes were redesigned and the block was updated. After dozens of cooks, I am happy to say this is the Meater setup I wanted in the first place. It is not perfect, but it is close enough that I reach for it every weekend.