The Hidden Cost of AI-Generated Tests — Why 90% Coverage Means Nothing
AI can write tests in seconds, but coverage numbers are lying to you. Here’s how tautological, implementation-coupled tests let a real bug survive for three weeks.
Ai-Tools
The Practical Guide to Using AI on Legacy Codebases (Without Making Things Worse)
AI tools can genuinely help with legacy code — but only on the right problems. Understanding and documentation: yes. Refactoring core logic you don’t fully understand: hard no.
Why I Stopped Letting AI Write Database Migrations
An AI-generated migration ran perfectly in dev. In production, it would have locked a large production table during business hours. What I learned the hard way about AI and database changes.
Why Senior Engineers Are the Biggest AI Skeptics (And Why They're Half Right)
Senior engineers have seen enough hype cycles to be skeptical of AI tools — and their concerns about maintainability and debugging complexity are legitimate. But refusing to engage is its own kind of risk.
I Ran Codex and Claude Code Side by Side for a Week
Codex just hit 1M weekly active users, GPT-5.4 under the hood, Figma MCP integration. Claude Code has been my daily driver for months. I gave both the exact same tasks for a week and tracked speed, code quality, context handling, pricing, and GitHub integration. Neither won cleanly.
The NYT Says Coding Is Dead. Here's What They Got Wrong (And Right)
The NYT’s ‘Coding After Coders’ piece made a lot of engineers defensive. As a Tech Lead managing a small engineering team, I read it twice — what they nailed, what they completely missed, and why the real story is more complicated than either side admits.
Every AI Coding Tool Switched to Credits. My Team's Bill Tripled.
AI coding tools quietly moved from flat subscriptions to credit-based pricing. I tracked my small team’s actual spending for a quarter and found we were paying well over $300/month per developer instead of the advertised $20. Here’s the breakdown, the traps, and how we cut costs by 40% without losing productivity.
I Tracked My Team's AI Tool Switching for 3 Months. The Productivity Loss Was Staggering.
In 3 months my team evaluated 6 AI coding tools, switched primary tools twice, and lost an estimated over 100 engineer-hours to setup, configuration, and relearning. I finally enforced a 90-day moratorium on tool changes. Here’s what I learned about the real cost of chasing the next shiny AI tool.
I Added an AI to Every PR for 30 Days. Here's What Actually Caught Bugs
I added CodeRabbit to our GitHub org on a Tuesday. By Friday, it had flagged 23 issues across 7 PRs — and my team thought I had secretly reviewed everything myself. After 30 days running four different AI PR review bots in parallel, here’s what actually caught real bugs versus what generated noise.
My Team Vibe-Coded a Feature. Three Weeks Later, I'm Still Cleaning Up
Three weeks ago, one of my engineers shipped a feature in two hours that would’ve taken a day. I praised him in the standup. Last week we spent four days unraveling the cascading issues it created. Here’s what vibe coding actually costs a team — and how I’ve changed our process since.