Blog
Thoughts on Christian Voluntarism, technology, and personal growth
Brick for Stone
The builders at Babel made one fateful substitution: brick for stone. Uniform, manufactured, interchangeable, instead of particular, found, given. It's the same substitution spec-driven development quietly asks us to make today. And with capable AI agents smoothing over the gaps, the old warning signs disappear. Why the synoptic dream of the all-encompassing spec keeps failing, what Pentecost teaches about plural knowledge, and where brick still belongs in the work.
The Human in the Loop Isn't Overhead
A new study claims experienced developers are 19% slower with AI tools, while believing they're faster. Here's why that finding is both true and completely misleading. After years of working with LLMs, I've learned the difference between automation and augmentation isn't just semantic; it's the key to everything. The human in the loop isn't overhead. It's the only thing catching inevitable failures.
Prompt Engineering Is Just Communication (And That's the Point)
Prompt engineering isn't dying; it's just communication by another name. The same skills that help you explain complex ideas to colleagues work with LLMs: resolving ambiguity, providing context, validating understanding. The difference? No body language, no facial expressions. Just text. So the text becomes everything. And if you can't push back when a model confidently gives you the wrong answer, you're not using the tool; it's using you.