What is the future of self-paced education in the age of AI? I've been experimenting with designing LLM-based learning experiences from the ground up, and wrote up my thinking on what I'm calling a Learning Surface.🌊

PMs who vibe code their PRDs into prototypes should be clear that it is an expression of "what" not "how". A communication tool. PM-generated prototypes should not become an excuse to skip the work of UX designers. That's a danger, and one mature teams do well to avoid.

Status: recording this week a series of lectures on Agent Skills. They will be added free to my AI-Assisted Dev course and also be released as a short standalone course on Udemy. If you aren’t writing and using Skills for your agent, you should be.

Saying code generation removes the need for software engineers is like saying self-driving cars remove the need for roads.

Don't create AI slop. Find the points in your creative process that LLMs can optimize. Keep your voice, your thoughts, your reasoning, your unique perspective. Give AI your boilerplate, your point-and-click, your drudgery, your tedium. Beat AI slop with efficient quality.

I'm a fan of Figma and FigJam and have courses on them. You can Figma for getting your design system together. But these days your team should be spending more time vibe coding throwaway interactive prototypes, getting real research data and iterating rather than pushing pixels.

I now have a course for this! www.pluralsight.com/courses/intr...

I'm so excited to announce a brand new course on @pluralsight.bsky.social, Introduction to MCP! This isn't a coding course, but a conceptual one, ensuring you understand what MCP actually is and how it works, so you can use it to your best advantage. 👇

New podcast episode just dropped! In the age of LLMs some devs are losing the joy of coding. How can you motivate yourself and your team while using LLM generation?

No release of any new LLM model will change the fact that you need to understand what you're doing as a developer.

Your dev team should be standardizing on Skills, not just for providing tooling to an AI, but to package domain knowledge. An artifact from the requirements process should be a Skill for the business the software is supporting, and it should be shared with the entire dev team.

I'm a unicorn. I do full-stack dev *and* deep UX / design / usability work. AI blurs the UX / dev line. Designers who learn some coding can supercharge their vibe coded prototypes. Devs who learn a bit of UX design can build better apps. Should you learn to be an AI unicorn?

I am quietly looking for a position in UX or DevRel/DevEx to add the value of my 25 years as a full-stack dev, bestselling dev educator, UX designer and researcher, and conference speaker. If you know of a good fit, feel free to DM me.

It's the last couple of days to get my new AI-assisted development course at early-access price. New modules are dropping soon and the course will be finished up in February. It's something different - a core mental model that we use to build good practices.

Remember that AI doesn’t feel the pain of past architectural choices. But you will.

You still need to know what you’re doing.

I see pushes lately to not even review code, just run tests and test behavior. I’m tempted to dismiss anyone pushing this as not a serious professional. Many devs code software where bugs and edge cases have real world impact. Where accountability is a thing.

"That changes everything" is the new "you're absolutely right".

You’ve never been a writer of code. You’re an implementer of intent.

1/6📖 I'm writing a book out in the open that you can read for free. It's on software development methodology for the AI age. Agile, Scrum, and others are falling short. AI has changed software dev, our processes need to change with it. 🧵

If you find yourself stuck in a conversation with someone that absolutely has to have the last word, let them have it and move on. They aren't truly listening anyway.

JavaScript frameworks are massive abstraction networks. They make things the web platform supports easier to do, but harder to reason about. If you understand how frameworks work, it makes the reasoning part easier.

Today is the last day ever to grab lifetime pricing as an All-Access founding member to my site. - Access all courses now + future - Lifetime yearly price as long as you subscribe - Discounted coaching sessions - Exclusive community/LinkedIn group - Live monthly round table 👇

Current status: I’m writing a book on my AI-aware software dev methodology to replace Agile/ Scrum. Most ambitious thing I’ve ever done. Book will be free to read online.

You all really slept on my Team Dynamics and Soft Skills course. Communication, managing devs, dealing with fellow team members, dealing with crisis and more. AI-proof skills to grow to senior, lead, and architect. Skills no tutorial teaches. It's on sale, and not expensive.👇

This, plus when it comes to web dev courses, it’s mostly about wiring up 15 frameworks and libraries that were just in that week. Deep understanding is rare to see. Seeing someone teaching it is even rarer.

Project-based courses are the root of tutorial hell. "Follow what I type" doesn't lead to understanding. You need an actual education. Deep conceptual understanding accompanied by coding yourself.

I'm excited to announce that I've added team licenses with bulk discounts to my under-the-hood course, Understanding React. Plus, if your team grabs bulk seats, you'll get a coupon for a discounted team coaching session too! 10+ seats this month get a free 60-minute session!

Udemy is getting bought by Coursera and the Udemy brand will disappear next year. I've been the "Udemy guy" for a decade, and met many of you there, and it is very sad to see it go. I hope the best for the new now expanded Coursera, and we'll see what happens next.

I've been a Design Engineer in the web dev space for 20 years. There just wasn't a name for it before. Before we just called it "dev guy who is also a UX guy".

I'm excited that the first DIU developer roundtable is scheduled for this Thursday! Roundtables will start with a tech talk, and this month's topic will be on communicating with non-technical stakeholders, clients, and managers. You can still join us as a founding member!👇

I'm pleased to present, for free, the first hour of my new course Understanding AI-Assisted Software Development on YouTube! This course is designed to be agnostic to any one AI tool, and instead provide a mental model and best practices for you and your team. 👇

Getting good maintainable results from LLM code generation isn't a single dev's endeavor. It's a team activity. Why? Remember one key fact: an LLM feeds on its own output. Whatever an LLM outputs becomes part of its context. Output becomes input. (1/5)

I find it more useful to think of TypeScript, not as a programming language, but as a form of active documentation for your JavaScript.

A YouTube commenter on my most recent video asked if I've considered that I'm actually a philosopher. So now I want to add "Software Philosopher" to my tagline.

There is critical vulnerability in React Server Components disclosed as CVE-2025-55182 that impacts React 19 and frameworks that use it. A fix has been published in React versions 19.0.1, 19.1.2, and 19.2.1. We recommend upgrading immediately. react.dev/blog/2025/12...

I'm honored to have been featured in @pluralsight.bsky.social 2026 Tech Forecast. On page 18 of the forecast I comment on what I think is one of the biggest dangers facing devs today: LLM over-reliance and skill atrophy. What's your no-hype take on what 2026 will look like for devs?

Reminder: Today is the last day of the Black Friday sale on my new site, with new courses and coaching sessions on sale. dontimitate.dev

All my courses and live coaching are on sale for Black Friday on my new site! If you believe in the Don't Imitate Understand motto, a repost is much appreciated! dontimitate.dev

I’m moving away from Udemy and that’s a very big deal for me. New courses, live coaching, a subscription option, and a brand new site with everything on sale for Black Friday. Hope to see you there. dontimitate.dev

All these kids upset about the Stranger Things release schedule. Ha. Try being a kid in the 90s waiting all summer to find out what happened after Captain Picard was assimilated by the Borg.

Whoa my little new blog post from today just hit the front page of Hacker News! news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4606...

Social media has become a reminder of something precious we're losing in the age of LLMs: 𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗾𝘂𝗲 𝘃𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀. Over time, it's become obvious just how many posts are being generated by an LLM. The tell is the voice. 👇🧵

You deserve a coach, but most devs have never had a coach or mentor. I have live coaching session slots available for December, and sessions are on sale right now for Black Friday. What do you want help with? 👇

If your process is bad, AI will make it worse, faster. In the latest DIU podcast episode, I talk 7 specific pitfalls to avoid and how your dev team can get real wins from AI-assisted dev! 👇

The first hour of my new course "Understanding Modern JavaScript Frameworks" is now free on YouTube! A unique course that dives into the core concepts that JS frameworks share, so that you can confidently work with any framework, now or in the future. 👇

I'm extremely excited to announce a new home for all my courses, coaching, workshops, and more! Black Friday is on by the way, including early access to my new AI course, content for which is being dropped this week. Check out the new site, built in @astrodotbuild! 👇

The second episode of my new Don't Imitate Understand podcast is out! In it we talk about an important skill that leads and devs should have: the ability to be Abstraction Breakers. Web dev is an ecosystem of leaky abstractions. Good architecture means understanding them. 👇

You get new things from an LLM. You just never get anything novel. There's a difference.

There's a big difference between junior devs and AI. Junior devs learn.