/model coding-by-hand-again

Progression Through Unlearning

Every once in a while, I take a weekend off from childrearing, dog training, and general-adulting and go to a nearby Airbnb for the weekend and just code, John Carmack style . This weekend I stayed in what my wife called a “hellbnb” (hot, musty, and roaches for roommates, but hey—solid wifi!) and I (95%) finished https://mockingboard.design and got a WIP version of https://floating.is live. React, TypeScript, Tailwind and Mountain Dew. Good times were had by all.

I spent nearly every day for the past six months vibe coding my heart out. I learned a lot about LLM workflows, but actually wasn’t learning how to build the apps I was building. I decided going forward I’d split my time fifty-fifty on frameworks/fundamentals and the new-fangled AI stuff.

Is coding without Claude/Codex even useful still? Are we already on the vertical part of the AI acceleration graph? METR said a few months ago that AI task capacity is basically doubling every three months. That’s like Moore’s Law on crack.

I typed every single line of Mockingboard and floating.is. In a way, it’s regression to pre-AI days where we followed tutorials, except now the tutorial is accurate and it’s written by Claude on the fly.

Things I learned while working on Mockingboard and floating.is:

  • React:
    • useState pattern (const [val, setVal] = useState()) for managing component and app UI state
    • lots of js module style imports, both named and default.
    • handling all state logic at the top level (in this case src/pages/HomePage.tsx), passing state and handlers down into components and bubbling events back up through callback functions
    • basic React tsx structure with imports at the top then export function HomePage() {} and inside that towards the bottom, return ( ) with HTML markup with { } for ts expressions in the markup.
  • TypeScript:
    • defining react props with type at the top of component files.
    • defining shared app-wide TypeScript types in src/types.ts
    • ! as non-null assertion operator, saying don’t warn me about null here
  • Tailwind:
    • grid grid-cols-2 to create a two-column grid layout
    • grid grid-cols-[300px_1fr] for a custom column with second column as remaining fraction
    • the px-4 md:px-8 pattern for setting mobile-first styles and then desktop
    • hidden md:block pattern for hiding things at mobile sizes
    • mx-auto max-w-2xl pattern for centered content
    • max-w-xl md:max-w-none to set a mobile max width but none on wider widths
  • git:
    • worked on my Conventional Commits commit messages using project scopes and commit messages that don’t just say what was done, but also why it was done
    • worked on my muscle memory for various git syntaxes:
      • git reset HEAD~1 uncommits and unstages while keeping working tree changes.
      • git reset --soft HEAD~1 to undo commit but keep staged
      • git reset --hard HEAD~1 undo commit and delete from working tree
      • git reset --cached <file> remove file from git tracking while keeping it locally
      • to add my current unstaged changes to two commits back:
        • git stash
        • git rebase -i HEAD~2
        • set commit A to edit
        • git stash pop
        • git add .
        • git commit --amend --no-edit
        • git rebase --continue