Richard Groß
@richargh.de
Software archeologist, web brutalist and health check expert. After 10 years in the business I'm about to become a teenage developer. I'm a conference speaker and enjoy mastering TDD, BDD, DDD, decoupled design and even practices that don't start with D.
Wow. That was surprising. Thank you for writing this.
January 9, 2026 at 3:18 PM
Wow. That was surprising. Thank you for writing this.
That is not one of Parnas‘ criteria though.
January 9, 2026 at 3:17 PM
That is not one of Parnas‘ criteria though.
„Information Hiding“ is a tricky principle though.
January 9, 2026 at 1:14 PM
„Information Hiding“ is a tricky principle though.
🙌 Great Write-up. I‘ve recently switched to „tidy code“ to avoid any dogma, alas that did not work either. Outside of teams with a coding standard, the term is not helpful in discussions. Might switch back now and point to your article.
January 9, 2026 at 6:20 AM
🙌 Great Write-up. I‘ve recently switched to „tidy code“ to avoid any dogma, alas that did not work either. Outside of teams with a coding standard, the term is not helpful in discussions. Might switch back now and point to your article.
Well but aren’t you trying to change behavior? I think you need a different word.
January 9, 2026 at 6:09 AM
Well but aren’t you trying to change behavior? I think you need a different word.
Since the .plan.md mentions the TDD steps explicitly, I also get TDD „for free“. An explicit step is also the refactor and here it starts a subagent which checks all the conventions. I always take a look after phase 0 and 1 though, trying to steer the genie.
January 9, 2026 at 6:05 AM
Since the .plan.md mentions the TDD steps explicitly, I also get TDD „for free“. An explicit step is also the refactor and here it starts a subagent which checks all the conventions. I always take a look after phase 0 and 1 though, trying to steer the genie.
Thanks for sharing this. I am right now experimenting with a simplified setup. /create-spec, which allows me to define what I want and results in a .spec.md. /clear. /create-plan for .spec.md which creates a .plan.md to achieve the spec given the state of the code base. Then /implement-plan.
January 9, 2026 at 6:05 AM
Thanks for sharing this. I am right now experimenting with a simplified setup. /create-spec, which allows me to define what I want and results in a .spec.md. /clear. /create-plan for .spec.md which creates a .plan.md to achieve the spec given the state of the code base. Then /implement-plan.
Love the hands under the cake. Also a very good list :)
January 7, 2026 at 11:55 AM
Love the hands under the cake. Also a very good list :)
Nadella said he does not want to talk about Slop anymore. Still not clear what he meant by that.
January 7, 2026 at 11:00 AM
Nadella said he does not want to talk about Slop anymore. Still not clear what he meant by that.
As mental models go it's not perfect. We do not want to date our genie. But I find it a helpful model. There's not point in arguing with the genie. It won't remember unless you write it down. And even then it might not "interpret" the document the same way the next time. richargh.de/posts/Fifty-...
50 First Dates with AI
"Working with a coding assistant or an LLM resembles teaming up with a very enthusiastic and knowledgeable junior". These expressions are widely used, but they purport the wrong mental model.
richargh.de
January 7, 2026 at 9:48 AM
As mental models go it's not perfect. We do not want to date our genie. But I find it a helpful model. There's not point in arguing with the genie. It won't remember unless you write it down. And even then it might not "interpret" the document the same way the next time. richargh.de/posts/Fifty-...
You have to teach it all the principles, all the habits, all the patterns, all the situational knowledge of the project, and all that without blowing the context into the "stupid zone" (depending on who you ask the stupid zone starts when 125k tokens are in the context).
January 7, 2026 at 9:48 AM
You have to teach it all the principles, all the habits, all the patterns, all the situational knowledge of the project, and all that without blowing the context into the "stupid zone" (depending on who you ask the stupid zone starts when 125k tokens are in the context).
Every new session the genie forgets everything you taught it before. You have to find the most efficient way to remind it of how you want it to behave.
January 7, 2026 at 9:48 AM
Every new session the genie forgets everything you taught it before. You have to find the most efficient way to remind it of how you want it to behave.
Reposted by Richard Groß
Nikita Prokopov points out that they almost exactly mirror the approach which Apple’s Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines advised against back in 1992 tonsky.me/blog/tahoe-i...
It’s hard to justify Tahoe icons
Looking at the first principles of icon design—and how Apple failed to apply all of them in macOS Tahoe
tonsky.me
January 6, 2026 at 9:34 PM
Nikita Prokopov points out that they almost exactly mirror the approach which Apple’s Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines advised against back in 1992 tonsky.me/blog/tahoe-i...