Tommie Podzemski

Tag: software development

  • How I finally fit AI into the way I build software

    How I finally fit AI into the way I build software

    For a long time, I used AI the way I think many developers started using it. Chatting with ChatGPT, asking questions, poking at what it could do. Later, I brought it into my editor, Zed and VS Code, as autocomplete. Then the slow move over to terminal based AI assistance. Useful, sometimes even impressive. But it didn’t feel natural.

    I think part of the problem was how I was thinking about it. AI as the “Lovable model”: one prompt in, an okay-ish app out. Interesting, yes, but I could never wrap my head around that as a serious workflow. A rough app from a single prompt is still a rough app.

    The shift came when I stopped thinking of AI as autocomplete or a one-prompt app generator, and started treating it more like a engineer on my team. Not someone who owns the product, the architecture, or the decisions, but someone who can work extremely well inside a clear frame.

    That’s when it started fitting with how I already work.

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  • How AI made leaving Evernote finally worth it

    How AI made leaving Evernote finally worth it

    For about 15 years, Evernote was one of the few apps I genuinely loved. I started with notes, then shifted to using it heavily for tasks and reminders as well.

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  • Is the SaaSpocalypse real, or is it just a squeeze?

    Is the SaaSpocalypse real, or is it just a squeeze?

    There is a lot of noise right now about the SaaSpocalypse. Depending on who you listen to, AI is either about to destroy the software industry as we know it, or this is just another market panic dressed up as a technology story.

    I’ve spent close to 30 years building software, and much of that time has been spent building and managing products used by millions of people. So I’m not particularly interested in looking at this as a stock market story, or making dramatic predictions about every large SaaS company suddenly disappearing. I’m more interested in looking at it from the builder’s side.

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  • What if the next programming language isn’t for us?

    What if the next programming language isn’t for us?

    We’ve spent decades optimizing programming languages for humans. Nicer syntax, higher-level abstractions, better type systems and better tooling, all in service of human authors. But something is shifting. Increasingly, we describe what we want and AI writes the code.

    If that continues, there’s a question I can’t shake:

    If AI becomes the primary author of software, why would the next programming language still be designed for us humans?

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