The Grug Brained Developer
A layman's guide to thinking like the self-aware smol brained

https://grugbrain.dev/

The day I taught AI to read code like a Senior Developer

Jan 5, 2025

A messy experiment that changed how we think about AI code analysis

Last week, I watched our AI choke on a React codebase - again. As timeout errors flooded my terminal, something clicked. We’d been teaching AI to read code like a fresh bootcamp grad, not a senior developer.

Here’s what I mean.
The Bootcamp vs Senior Mindset

Remember your first day reading production code? Without any experience with handling mature codebases, you probably quickly get lost in the details[0]

But watch a senior dev review a massive PR:

They jump straight to the core files
Group changes by feature (“all auth changes, all db changes”)
Build a mental model of architecture first
Only then dive into implementation

Almost a month ago, I created a telegram channel with the goal of reading tech books consistently, and sharing summaries of them.This week, I have finished reading the first book - “A Philosophy of So

How do people's names differ around the world, and what are the implications of those differences on the design of forms, databases, ontologies, etc. for the Web?

asdf; The Multiple Runtime Version Manager
Manage all your runtime versions with one tool!
The Multiple Runtime Version Manager
https://asdf-vm.com/

https://asdf-vm.com/guide/introduction.html

Pretend you have a really great programming day.   You only have to attend a few meetings, have only a few off-topic conversations, don'...

Tout le monde sait ce que sont le couplage et la cohésion, mais peu de gens savent l'expliquer. Encore moins de monde est conscient du fait qu'évaluer le couplage et la cohésion suppose de voyager dans le temps. En tout cas moi je ne savais rien de tout ça. Voyons ensemble comment appréhender l'évolutivité du code sans super pouvoir.Read more →

Learning how to build quality software is not part of computer science education. How do we learn it?

If you can't do nothing, then don't expect to be able to do something.

Robert Kegan’s model of adult development has profoundly influenced my understanding of ethics, relationships, society, and thought. This page summarizes his theory.