Battle of the IDEs*! 13 minute read

When ChatGPT first came out, one of the first things I did with it was ask it to write me code. This was two years ago and a lot has changed. First it was extensions in VS Code, then it was good extensions in VS Code, then it was GitHub’s Copilot, Cursor, and now Kiro. We are going to cover my impressions of these tools in this article but before we do, I’d like to suggest something for new and junior developers. These tools can accelerate what you do, but you understanding what they do, why it is good, why... read more

Vibe Coding Platforms: The Promise vs. Reality of AI-Powered App Development 5 minute read

One of the biggest barriers to developing applications has always been coding. If you have a brilliant idea but lack programming skills, you’d typically need to hire a developer or learn to code yourself. Enter “vibe coding” platforms—AI-powered tools that promise to build applications through natural conversation. But do they live up to the hype?

I’ve spent months testing these platforms, investing real money to access full feature sets across multiple services. From invite-only beta platforms to established players, I tested Envato, Build.ai, Builder.ai, Replit, Lovable, Tempo, Emergent, and several others. Here’s what I discovered about the current state of conversational... read more

From 'Works on My Machine' to 'Works for Everyone' 7 minute read

A long time ago, when I was working in the Drupal CMS space, I was introduced to Lando. It was one of the first times I had seen a docker container impact the workflow of a project. It was not easy to setup initially but in the end the result was so positive, that it could not be ignored. Development environments have evolved significantly since then to solve the “works on my machine” problem.

In this post we will be getting technical, so if that is not your thing, don’t feel bad about hitting the back button.

Remember when "works on my... read more