when working with AI, say precisely what you want to get *exactly* what you want

I really like writing software. I can do it all day long. And so I do.

These days, I'm working by myself... in the traditional sense. I don't have human teammates—but I *am* collaborating all the time with AI coding assistants. These models are not people. Yet, to get the best results out of them, I need to use *people manager* skills. tugtool.dev/journal/im-a...

Look where I am! Don’t get any ideas though. Just visiting a friend.

A great part of working at Apple when I did was that I absolutely wanted the products we were making. I always loved the Mac. Joining that first iPhone team was a dream. I *so wanted* that gadget! Now I’m working on a personal project. I’m focused on capturing that feeling. So far, so good.

good projects spawn side projects

Do “real programmers” use AI to write code? I think so! tugtool.dev/journal/real...

My wife just turned this up this photo while going through some old boxes. Yes, that's me. Heh. I’ve been working with computers for a long time. Circa 1995?

Starting a software project involves so many things that have to get done before getting down to the actual work of developing the code itself: defining the scope and audience, coming up with good names… and putting up a website. I wrote a post on how I set up mine. tugtool.dev/journal/the-...

I’ve started a new project. It’s called Tug. The aim is to deliver better refactoring for AI coding assistants. It’s open-source, and I’ll be discussing all the work with lots of journal posts as I go. Hooray for new beginnings! tugtool.dev

Over the last year or so, I’ve made the biggest-ever change to the way I write software. I now code with AI assistance all the time. Here’s why. Here’s how. kocienda.micro.blog/2025/06/25/c...

We’ve been making great progress at Infactory, the company I co-founded last year. We help developers build natural language APIs over structured data: connect data sources, build query programs, and deploy them as REST endpoints. infactory.ai/developers

How do you solve a design challenge full of unknown unknowns? Jump back to 2005 and try the Blob Keyboard, @kocienda.bsky.social's first working prototype for the iPhone keyboard, created during a UX crisis.

A robot garbage man who was never programmed to dream but does so anyway. #gpt4o

When I add big new features to code, I hack away wildly in my work branch. I'll often break other features. I don't care. I just want to see the new feature ASAP. Once I have that, I usually find it pretty easy to go back, fix any breakages, and neaten things up.

There are “Esperanto” ideas, proposals which sound great, but are complex and impractical, and so they never take off. There also are “tweet” ideas, trivial things which don’t seem to do much at all, but are simple and appealing to everyone, and so they spread everywhere.

I’ve been doing a bunch of coding over the past few days with claude-3.7-sonnet MAX in Agent mode in Cursor. It’s been amazing. It’s like having a junior dev who works fast, knows a lot for its experience level, gets a lot right (and a lot wrong too), but is always willing to go back and try again.

I’m proud to have started Infactory with Brooke, and I think we’re making great progress, but I know it’s rarely easy for her. Let her tell you. www.linkedin.com/posts/abhart...

I haven't written software for Apple platforms since 2020, but over the last few days, I've been working on an iOS demo app for a prospective customer. In an Xcode log message, I was unexpectedly greeted by an old friend: UIKeyboardLayoutStar. I wrote the first version of that class back in ~2008.

I have a “software mindset”. When I think about ideas or look at systems, I imagine the abstractions, data, and algorithms I would need to write a relevant program, either to examine a topic, simulate a real-world thing, or actually implement some working code.

no ulus for you

It’s 6:30 AM. In my favorite Hawaiian spot. Already finished a leisurely breakfast. Beautiful view of the surf. Laptop opened. A wonderful day ahead of programming ahead of me, since that’s what I like to do best.

I do a lot of python programming these days, and sadly, there’s no consistency anywhere. Let’s take just one example, is it: len(foo), foo.len, foo.length, foo.len(), or foo.length()? I never know.

I enjoyed every day I worked with Apple ObjC frameworks. Once you learned the naming conventions, you could guess names even in new frameworks. It made it easy to think in that code.

Delicious!

Merry Christmas to my internet friends. 🎄

There’s a fine line between software that’s supple and helpful without getting in your way and guessing wrong all the time, but great software comes along with you for the ride, and makes the ride a pleasure.

We can, and probably should, take it for granted that all decent software gets the algorithms right. Getting the heuristics right is what makes software excellent. I wrote this about heuristics in my book.

We applied Postel’s Law throughout the software for the first iPhone, and we described the concept in the ’949 patent under this title: Touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics. patents.google.com/patent/US747...

The best software gives what you want, not necessarily what you did. This is a corollary of the more general Robustness Principle, which I always refer to as Postel’s Law: “Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others.” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustn...

proud to be the first follower of @jeangordonkocienda.bsky.social, the best person I know ❤️

Pt 2 of @kocienda.bsky.social's podcast with Jerry Cuomo is here! Hear all about Ken's journey after Apple, thoughts on AI, & what he's up to now at Infactory www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-s_...

Two rules of software: 1. Add a level of indirection if the code doesn't do what you want. 2. If that didn't work, goto 1.

I was on the Wild Ducks podcast with Jerry Cuomo talking about Apple and autocorrect. A fun conversation. Future episode on Infactory (my company) and AI will drop soon. open.spotify.com/episode/3IH8...

Waymo is still super cool every time. Feels like magic.

on this day in 1968! so good. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mot...

We’ve kept the Rancor out in the living room ever since. Around Christmas time, he gets a hat. Rancor Claus! He thinks you look delicious.

In 2009, I bought this Rancor toy. We had this gingerbread house building contest, and I decided to make a monster movie tableau. I thought it came out great! I made a 1950s style monster movie poster for it too! I didn’t win. 😅

At Apple, I wrote a little declarative language to describe different keyboard layouts. It handled geometry, keyplanes, key actions, graphics, colors, etc. It was cool. I called it KBStar. I wonder if they still use it?

Of course, LLMs make this possible in a way that I didn’t think I would see in my lifetime. And while talking to the computer in English in amazing, and is a big part of what we’re trying to accomplish at Infactory (the company I started earlier this year), that’s not the same as programming.

I’ve always loved writing little domain-specific computer languages. It’s fascinating to figure out the most economical way to say the thing you want the computer to do for you.

Over the past two years, and at an accelerating rate over the past few months, I write software with the help of AI. I come up with the ideas, write the specs, and nudge things in the right direction. The AI does the drudgery of putting the bits in the right order for me to review and integrate.

I like it the most when the new software teaches me new things. Doing a lot of work with Polars lately. Nice software. pola.rs

For me, the best programs to write are the ones where I know what I want to do in the big picture, but I’m not exactly sure how to accomplish the thing.

I’m happiest in my work when I’m writing new software every day, and I’ve been doing that recently, so 😃.

OK. No more programming for this evening. Honestly, I can stop anytime I want.

my fav ornament

I’m in NYC this week and yeah that totally was Alec Baldwin I passed on the sidewalk while I was walking to get my morning bagel and coffee. Small city. Small world.

I’m an extrovert with objects and an introvert with people.

I want computers to get a lot better which also means I want them to be different than they are today.