mastodon 4.8.0-nightly.2026-10-06I make things that nobody's asking for.
I used to post things that nobody was asking for, but then I stopped. Learn about me at https://justin.searls.co or reach out to justin@searls.co.
The vast majority of programmers are late adopters. They don't follow programming news. They show up, do the job, go home. They may hear about things through the grapevine. They might go to a conference every 2 years. But they typically don't take the time to play with new stuff
Can't wait for iPhone Duo. Haven't had a folding phone since iPhone 6 Plus.
For seemingly the sixth time in my career, DHH has arrived at the same conclusion I have—this time, that AI coding means we should be building more native apps, because development cost is no longer the bottleneck—but the way he goes about talking about it couldn't be more different https://youtu.be/vDjW_dRyKXY?t=1457&is=t5lg25x_naMgYtEB
It's too bad Amphetamine for macOS is free. Given how many engineers' AI workflows depend on keeping their MacBooks awake at all hours, if only they'd charged a subscription they probably could have raised $50M at a $3B valuation by now.
I complete agree coding agents make software engineering harder, but the rub is that many professional software engineers are pretty bad at these new hard things and it's hard to see how they're not totally screwed. https://simonwillison.net/2026/Sep/24/harder/
Across my 6 iOS apps, each GitHub issue is automatically triaged and assigned by an orchestrator agent to be implemented by a subagent UNLESS it's been labeled as "human" for specification or verification reasons.
At this point, less than 10% of issues are labeled "human"
Experiencing the common cold for the first time since I had turbinate reduction surgery and holy shit, this is how noses are supposed to work? You blow your nose and mucus comes out? And you can breathe all week long? Christ, you all had it good no wonder I was mad all the time
A players hire A agents and B players hire C agents.
If I could go back in time 20 years and tell myself one thing, it would be this: "whatever it is, don't bother programming it if there's any way you can put it off until mid-2025."
Codex is extremely frustrating in that when you send "steering" instructions reminding it to do the work in a certain way, it will almost always reply to acknowledge the request and then STOP ALL WORK.
I've tried coaxing it to keep working in AGENTS.md, but no luck.
It is very surprising that disabling iPhone/iPad auto-lock (say, changing from "3 minutes" to "Never") doesn't require an authentication step. Bad actor with temporary access to your device could enable it and wait until you leave your phone out and fail to explicitly lock it.
I read way too many comments about DHH's Rails World keynote, and the substantive arguments seem pretty thin. Some people who love Ruby and Rails seem to feel disappointed/depressed/afraid to be told the things they care about don't matter anymore. https://www.reddit.com/r/rails
Glad people are reporting success with Siri AI, but I never had a single positive experience with it all summer. Three times yesterday I watched it spin endlessly, reply "I don't understand" to banal requests, or just blink and disappear. https://pogueman.substack.com/p/125-tests-of-the-new-ai-siri
So I guess we're all just agreed that, "it's not against the law if an AI agent does it," then? https://www.strix.ai/blog/baseten-harbor-github-pat-takeover
By far the biggest change in the agentic coding era has been that I'm no longer chained to my computer all day. Just got more done by sending a few messages from my iPhone on the driving range than I would normally achieve in an eight-hour work day at my desk.
Opus 5.5 seems impressively competent and snappy! Get all your work done now before they nerf it to hell next week.
Apple has been extremely cagey around usage limits for Private Cloud Compute, only sharing that subscribers of higher tiers of iCloud+ are allowed more usage.
Well, my apps make liberal use of Apple's language models and I'm now constantly hitting my PCC usage limits. Welp!
A skill we need to learn is how to ratchet up our ambitions until we uncover what the models truly cannot do. And each time they're improved, to once again test the fences. Confidence and certainty in one's own workflow have become trademark signs of ignorance and complacency.
MCP is doing the heavy lifting here. I've written two "agentic" apps. I immediately realized I could improve both by replacing the LLM part with normal fucking code. The revolution here is MCP shoehorning API access into many more programs and services than we previously had https://worksonmymachine.substack.com/p/mcp-an-accidentally-universal-plugin
Claude sure goes down a lot for being a product targeting businesses.
Maybe Anthropic is just doing humanity a solid by helping us understand how much it will suck when the era of subsidized pricing for LLM-based products ends.
Why I'm not rushing to take sides in the RubyGems fiasco https://justin.searls.co/posts/why-im-not-rushing-to-take-sides-in-the-rubygems-fiasco/
Pro-tip to any devs who only discovered TDD thanks to coding agents: refactoring is inherently directional. It's more like prefactoring—you rearrange code to make the next change easy. That means you (and your agent) should know the next planned change before you refactor!
Content Hiatus https://justin.searls.co/mails/2026-03/
A VP of Engineering wrote in to say my latest essay, "is fantastic and terrifying and absolutely necessary for us to be having conversations about." And that most people still, "have no idea what we're actually on the precipice of." https://justin.searls.co/posts/brace-for-the-fuckening/
Using MacBook Neo for "real" development work and it's simultaneously juggling:
• Running Claude Code in three tabs at once
• Compiling multi-package Xcode builds
• Automating two iOS Simulators and a Mac build of my app
Hasn't missed a beat. Not bad for a phone chip.
Claude's electron app for macOS is such a buggy mess that I've uninstalled it and sequestered it to a Safari tab, just like I did to Slack, Discord, etc., six years ago. ChatGPT is a native app where things like the stop button actually work (usually) https://tonsky.me/blog/fall-of-native/
Models are commodities, harnesses are differentiators https://justin.searls.co/links/2026-03-16-models-are-commodities-harnesses-are-differentiators/
I'll admit, it's hard not to get frustrated by all the posts about coding agents going viral lately that are saying the same shit I've been blogging and podcasting for multiple years at this point with little to no fanfare. https://blog.lmorchard.com/2026/03/11/grief-and-the-ai-split/
Goals are overrated, Constraints are underrated https://justin.searls.co/links/2025-06-30-goals-are-overrated-constraints-are-underrated/
Update on using MacBook Neo for dev tasks: this is definitely a device you should to reboot daily, even without Chrome or any Electron apps.
This morning, Zed (a native Rust app) was 500% CPU without a single window open, 3 macOS internal daemons had crashed, 800ms input lag.
We blew past this milestone without much fanfare, but it bears repeating: building awareness & goodwill by releasing open source no longer makes strategic sense for many companies. Agents increasingly consume & adapt OSS—often without users' knowledge—and cut out the creator.
Dual-loop BDD is the new Red-green TDD https://justin.searls.co/posts/dual-loop-bdd-is-the-new-red-green-tdd/
Full-breadth is the new full-stack. What might separate winners and losers in the AI era. https://justin.searls.co/posts/full-breadth-developers/
Becky's Dyson Airwrap can connect to the Dyson app… just realized I can cURL her curler while she curls her hair.
Sent the DLSS 5 video to some not-very-online friends and they thought it looked incredible. Shame on them for not knowing that real gamers are supposed to be outraged! (I happen to think it looks slick as hell and am looking forward to using it.) https://youtu.be/4ZlwTtgbgVA
Marathon is the first PVP-heavy game to get its hooks in me since… Unreal Tournament in 2001?
I fucking suck, but even playing solo it can feel incredible when you do manage to come out on top. If you want to roll with me, I'm Searls#2430 (or just email me justin@searls.co)
GPT 4.1? In 2026? Is the State Department on a budget? Is every diplomatic cable just going to have 300 space-delimited emdashes now? https://www.nextgov.com/acquisition/2026/03/state-offloads-claude-underpinning-model-flagship-statechat/412022/
Barely a month goes by where I can check the news without being reminded of the Cracked skit about two comedy writers who were hired to run a fake Donald Trump campaign and then accidentally got him elected https://youtu.be/8qIQbydyHwc?si=COq7K0HLng3LHI1R
Hotfix deployed! Len Testa joins for a Galactic Starcruiser tell-all: What was the Star Wars hotel actually like? Why did Disney's executives learn all the wrong lessons? What's Justin's hourly rate and does it include foot stuff? Listen and find out! https://justin.searls.co/casts/breaking-change-v52.0.1-len-testa-bring-back-the-starcruiser/
For the extremely narrow Venn diagram of people who love both I Think You Should Leave and Disco Elysium, this is amazing https://youtu.be/6OKgdTXLWIg?si=RyS95BqxFBSEVwyQ
Red-green rally https://justin.searls.co/shots/2026-03-14-08h55m56s/
First impressions: Series 12 is a massive performance improvement. Siri AI is much faster than on the 11, and for the first time the podcast app can actually play and download shows on demand without crapping out multiple times.
New iPhone 18 Pro is much better at staying cool in the Florida sun but it's still no match for a 65°C far infrared sauna. 🧖♂️
Want to buy Becky's iPhone Air? I can vouch that it's in excellent condition (unlocked, $300 less than MSRP). Buy here on Swappa or send me your best offer justin@searls.co https://swappa.com/listing/view/LACO93287
I need a new blog to subscribe to. Know any you think I'd like? E-mail me: justin@searls.co
New episode of Breaking Change is live! Pod Freeze https://justin.searls.co/casts/breaking-change-v53-pod-freeze/
New episode of Merge Commits is live! freeCodeCamp: Which Devs Are Screwed? https://justin.searls.co/casts/merge-commits-freecodecamp-which-devs-are-screwed/
Heaven:
- Groceries are delivered by Amazon
- Social media is run by Facebook
- Phones are made by Apple
- Search is indexed by Google
- Games are published by Microsoft
Hell:
- Groceries are delivered by Microsoft
- Social media is run by Apple
- Phones are made by Facebook
- Search is indexed by Amazon
- Games are published by Google
