Early in my engineering career I used to chase novelty - the shiny new idea that piqued by curiosity and let me explore solving new and exciting problems. The issue with this is, of course, you end up with a lot of half-baked/semi-developed projects. Once you've "solved" the core problem you were curious about, everything else suddenly feels like a bore and a chore - and then you never build up the skills required to deliver something. It's an easy thing to slip into when you're new to coding - you've been given a powerful hammer, and everything looks like a very hammerable nail. Somewhere along the way, I stumbled upon some sage words that helped me break the cycle: "There's novelty in nuance." Rather than chase the shiny new thing, stick with the old thing and instead the novelty in the details of the old thing. This strategy helps you stick with a project and helps you see it through to completion. As an aside, one of my long-time favorite bl...

And ... now, programmers turn to GitHub Copilot. You ask it to make a soffritto and instead of regular carrots, it references new things you've never heard of. Purple dragons?!? "What's a purple dragon?" you ask it, as you learn about the hip new carrot all the younger cooks use. You continue vibe-cooking and end up with a Marco Pierre White-level pasta dish , faster than you ever could on your own. Your guests love every bite. "How'd you come up with this??" they ask, in awe. "Purple Dragon carrots, obviously. Don't you know about them?"

I love a good roadmap. They don't get you to the destination but a good roadmap breaks down the milestones along your way, where you plan to stop for food, rest, gas, and they highlight whatever impediments you'll face along your way. Maybe you won't stick to the roadmap in the end but the act of creating one is like running a thought-experiment. You mentally go through the motions of your journey so there's fewer surprises. If you've ever done a roadtrip without a roadmap and decided things in the moment, playing things by ear it's probably felt very freeing and impulsive. But... you probably relied on a lot more on your wallet or your own willingness to do some extra work if/when things have gone wrong. It's a fun experience when you're doing an actual roadtrip but when you're delivering a product? In those cases, you may want to reduce impulsiveness, how much you rely on your wallet to cover unplanned costs, and how much you ask people to do a bit...

As a follow-up to my post about the post-UX-UX is a related question, this one about AI: Is AI shifting us to a post-UX world? My original post-UX-UX post was about considering the user's experience after using a product. As an example, when I use Google Maps to get directions to a business, what is my post-UX experience? Am I left frustrated because Google Maps navigated me to the business without factoring that I'd need to park somewhere?  Is the business I was looking for where I expected it to be? Does the neighborhood  feel safe? Can I easily orient myself around the neighborhood? Are there other places nearby I should be checking out that align to my interests? If Google Maps focuses on improving their user experience, great. If Google Maps focuses on improving my experience after I'm done with the app, even better. Now, with AI - and, in particular, agentic AI - the idea of needing a UX is really being brought into question. Not all buttons need pressing, and not al...