My Coding Skills Are Atrophying

Welcome to Syntax. Hey. We've got a potluck episode for you today. You bring the questions. We bring the answers. Questions about, does anybody still use Hermes? What AI should I subdue? You got budget for one, which is the one that you're you're giving your 100 or $200 a month to.

Is it time to move on from Versus Node? Somebody has asked. My coding skills are atrophying, and I feel like I'm falling behind.

Do you ever hit flow state with AI coding? And some really good questions around how to know when to move on from a specific technology and when it's working just fine. If you got a question, please go to syntax.fm in the potluck.

In the nav, there's a potluck button. You can ask a question there, or just leave the question down below in the comments, on Spotify, on YouTube, whatever it is. We'll see it. We'll answer it in a upcoming episode.

Alright. The first question we have here is from the fox cost.

It really hurts me to feel like I really feel left behind because whenever I start a project, I always let AI make code in terms of autocomplete or code generation.

So my code base always has, like, 80 to 90% AI generated code, which led me to forget about the most basic things I couldn't even do an HTTP request with my own hands without AI. So tell me, please, how do I solve this issue? Should I relearn those things or what? Yes.

I I think this is one of those things, and and I'm gonna talk about this a lot more.

And by the time this is out, you'll have seen my video, if you haven't, give it a watch on mental health and AI coding. And the brain drain of letting AI do it for you is not just fake. It's not just something that we all feel. It's quite simply by not doing those things in repetition and by not allowing our brain to understand these processes, your brain is actually letting those neural pathways go away or their their those pathways are, becoming inaccessible. So it's not just like a feeling of brain drain. By not being actively involved in an active participant in your code or the process by which things are doing things, Your brain JS, in fact, not using those skills and Node. Yeah. It's not braining. It's so funny. I know a lot of marketing around, like, brain training apps use the word neuroplasticity, but it's a real thing, and it is, one of those things where you you do need to use it. Otherwise, you will lose it. I think it's kind of a tricky thing because there's

the syntax of it, which somebody tweeted the other day, like, will the name of this podcast become, like, something retro when the syntax doesn't necessarily matter all that much? And forgetting, like, the syntax, like like, if you're doing a reduce, what are the arguments to reduce callback? Knowing what those what that signature is, I don't think is as important as actually understanding how this stuff works. And if you Yeah. Are I know a lot of people are just kinda glazing over the code or don't necessarily care how it's happening.

If you don't know how a request flows through your application or, how an API call is made, then you're gonna hit performance issues. You're going to not understand how it works from end to end. And I think that those are two separate things of understanding the syntax of being able to code it by hand, because, certainly, there are things from ten years ago that I would not be able to to code by hand. I I do not know how to do the PNG fix from twenty years ago on IE, and and that's fine because it it's it's totally changed.

But understanding the fundamental, like, flow of your application and the the mechanisms and how everything works together, that is super important. And I think as people become careless of not reading the code because you don't necessarily have to, You also can get careless with actually understanding how these things work and just type in the Bos, and you don't necessarily care what comes out the other end. And that not caring, I think, is is kind of dangerous because then, all of a sudden, you start to just, like, you don't get that from learning how things work and understanding it all, and then it just you you round it off, and then you you have no skills at the end of the day. So I think that it's very important that you you keep up those things. And and how do you do that? Well, understand how things warp. Solve problems. Like, that's the other thing is that, like, where it might not necessarily matter so much that you understand how the the code, like, is typed, it certainly does matter how these things work. And figuring out solving problems with how these things work and not just accepting the first thing that comes out, because you asked it to do something is is really important.

Yeah. I think that's exactly about being an active participant and understanding the process in which these things are happening, I think it will make a big impact.

Yeah. Even if you look at I think we have a question coming up on this. If you look at the people who are doing the best right now in building out harnesses and, like like, Junior from from Century is one example. Kramer has, like, gone deep on understanding what is the best way to build some sort of AI assistant that we can throw in our Slack and can do work for us.

And it doesn't I don't know if he he he he does certainly does care about the code, but I don't understanding how it all works together and what the best flow is and, like, really critical critical thinking of how this stuff works is how that's become a very good implementation versus somebody else who just wants to vibe code their own assistant, and then two months later, they're like, whatever. It's a mess. I don't care about it anymore.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Totally. Next question from Guitars and Dev. I still code most of my time in Versus Code, and I have the plain GitHub Copilot license. I use and love the terminal a lot, especially for Git.

Now that coding agents and CLIs are the main thing, I feel a bit awkward in my setup compared to the Claude, Node, codecs, open code users. I must say with the v two incoming and the new TypeScript rewrite and all of the good things Versus Code has done around agents. I feel that I have everything that compares to other editors, and what bothers me is that a with AI usage and configs, it depends on the editor, and there is no real standard. Yes. There is some work to standardize these things, but, fortunately, not everybody agrees.

Versus Code is very hard to step away from because I've used it now for more than five years. I've had the this Wes sublime text, and I've had a crazy amount of shortcuts and snippets. Is it time to step away from Versus Code or not just yet? With all the GitHub code being leaked, I can imagine that Versus Code also got leaked. What are your takes on this? It's got a couple Wes there. It's like, is it time to step away from the IDE itself? Certainly, a lot of people think so, and, certainly, a lot of the like like, Cursor is trying to push people out of the IDE into this, like, this platform that everybody is building. Right? Like, the either it's going to be a TUI or it's gonna be I think they ideally, they want you in some sort of desktop application that will do all of your code and all of your chats and integrate with all of your work. Like, co work is the new the new coding that that they're trying to push everybody onto. So I I don't know. I have a hard time. I still feel most comfortable doing most of my work in an editor. Or if I'm doing it from a TUI, then I still have the editor open as Wes, so I'd be able to jump back and forth simply just because it's, a, it's it's easier to understand what's coming in. Not that I necessarily will read everything that's coming in, but it's faster. And and, b, like, it's way easier just to, like, change stuff and and, like, be able to make design something to make it look like you want because it's very frustrating when the CSS comes in and it doesn't look very good. Like, what are you gonna do? You're just gonna make it look a little bit better. You know? It's so much easier for me just to jump in and actually write a little bit of code there. So is it time to step away? I don't I don't think so. I think, like like you said, Versus Code, they have all of the features.

They're pushing in the direction of all of the other things that Node, Cloud Code, OpenCode already have.

Certainly, they have an advantage of being integrated. They're a little bit behind, and they got their lunch ate on quite a bit of this stuff. But I I wouldn't say that if I I would say, like, if you're comfortable with this type of stuff, I don't think there's much that you're missing from it from

moving to another harness. What do you think? Yeah. No. I I 100% agree. And I I do love Versus Code. Absolutely. I I think it's I I think a lot I'm not gonna say the performance is perfect on it, but a lot of times, people complain about the performance are the same people who just installed whatever extension that someone on, YouTube told them to install.

And some of those extensions are not good. My people still install sent that Wix extension, which JS, like, import cost, which make is like a runaway, process or something like that. So, you know, a lot of times, what you're better off doing is pairing down your Versus Node setup instead of just ditching it entirely.

I do tend to use Zed primarily as my, text editor of choice these days. And I, like you, also agree. I like to have it open, and I like to have it open with the projects that I'm working on in AI for simple quick fixes. And, oftentimes, I still, like, I still really hate the output. Like you said, CSS, specifically. I really hate the CSS output. And many times, it's easier for me to just go in and fix it quickly rather than have the AI, try again and try again and not necessarily understand what I'm trying to get at, in terms of, like, the way that I warp it. And people, you know, they say, why why does it matter? Well, you know, an unmaintainable code base is still an unmaintainable code base with AI. AI can just, like, additively continue to add things infinitely Yeah. And patch issues rather than rather than fix them in a correct way or something like that. It yeah. I mean, you could definitely argue that it doesn't matter. You just prompt and prompt and prompt. But, again, all that stuff Scott money, costs tokens. Yeah. I'm I'm smart. I can fix it. I I think with a lot of this stuff, people feel like,

am I falling behind because I'm not switching up my my tool stack? And if you feel like that, I think it's worth switching to something else for a couple weeks just to understand how other people are working. And you might come out of that on the other end and say, I don't necessarily like these bits, but you'll probably also come out of it being like, oh, I understand why people are doing things a little bit differently.

I understand why they're approaching it in this way. So with whenever these things change so quickly like this, it's always kind of scary. It's just like, am I am I am I wrong? Am I old? Am I am I, like, stubborn in what I'm doing? Yes.

Or are are they just are these people just chasing after what is exciting? And, generally, it's a little bit of both.

And, generally, there are some good workflows that can can be pulled out of that. So I would probably at at least pick a side project and say, I'm gonna try do this entirely in new tools, and you'll probably come out of that learning a few things. And then you can you feel confident in making your decision of how you'd like to go forward.

Yes. Yes. Totally. So yeah. I mean, again, I I still like using Versus Code. I still like using zed. And in, a big fan of Ben Veenigar and his hunk package, which shows you difs, but I can't personally ride with just a diff in a term. You know? I need a, like, having a diff that you can edit via zed is something that I prefer to work in.

There are times when I do just wanna track the the diff to see exactly what's going on and keep an eye on things. But if I wanna have a hand in it, which sometimes I I do, depends on the software that I'm building, I will, have a Versus Node open JS or, you know biggest problem that that cursor or Versus Code have is that the freaking

sidebar is is too small for people. And a lot of people just have tiny little sidebar, and they're used to that. And then a majority of your work has now moved into the sidebar, and the ergonomics of that is is really frustrating. It's hard to get uptake. So what a lot of the they're doing is they're trying to push you into more of this, like, you get your chat in the middle, you got your project on the left, and you got your, like, your diffs on the right. You know? Like, that's that's the app that everybody is building right now, and and that's a little bit of more of an ergonomic view for that. And that's not to say that, like, you can't get that set up with Versus Code. It's just that I think a lot of people don't get that set up, and then it's hard to push them into this new set of features when you're working in this tiny little sidebar.

I I like the diff view in Zed because they're all just buffers, and you can edit directly from the diff view. And it's, like, nice, and, it feels like a good experience there. So, maybe give that a try if that's something that you are missing. Alright. Next question here from Nick. Hey, dudes. I have been getting more into AI dev recently. I find it very difficult to get into the flow state that I usually get into when coding by hand like a caveman.

When I am coding my hand and face to face with a problem, that's when I'm able to get in that flow state of deep thought, which makes coding fun and even therapeutic.

I'm curious about your guys' thoughts on this. Do you have the same issue? If not, what are some things that you have done to be able to get into the flow state of AI? My gosh. This is something that I have not solved. Let me tell you. The flow state for me has been completely decimated, and I am somebody who is maybe the equivalent of the dog in that movie. Man, which movie is that Wes they go, and they're like, look at something else.

Which movie? Airbud. Airbud. Yes. Of course. The famous, the the famous, high flying dog of Air Bud, who, golden golden receiver.

How many Air Bud movies are there? Just a billion of Air Bud movies. Masterpieces. Yeah. One of my favorite Instagrams of all time is an Air Bud who's who transforms into basically, like, Kobe Bryant doing a slam dunk on a guy.

It's just like it's great. Okay. Either way. Sorry. Air Bud.

Flow state. I was just talking about

how distracted I knocking into the flow state.

Can I talk about how distracted I am by then getting completely derailed talking about Airbud? How apt was that? Folks, that was not made up. That was, true to my farm. And so working with AI to me has become this, where I am working on project, I'm typing something, and that latency in the time at which I get a response back from the AI is long enough that I go to Air Bud mode and I look at something else. And then I go to this and I go to something else. And I look at Air Bud and I go to something else. And then and so what happens to me is, man, Wes, I got in my herder right Node, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve Oh my gosh. 13 projects open. And not all of those projects have AI agents actively on there, but they are open.

And my attention has been absolutely decimated.

One thing that I I'm gonna I'm gonna keep plugging this video, guys. The video is on syntax right now and the mental health coding video. I touch on all of this stuff. It's so interesting that these questions are coming in like this. So the people that I talk to who do the best job of maintaining a flow state or a Node scattered viewpoint don't work on 13 different things at once. They work on one thing at a time. Yeah.

And, like so that is certainly part of the thing that I think needs to be a part of your workflow if you're looking to regain that flow state because it is so easy for somebody whose attention can get pulled here or there to be like, well, I now that I'm waiting for this thing to finish, well, I can start something else or go somewhere else or do something else or whatever. Mhmm. When, like, that becomes that turns you into a nonactive participant in the code.

I think a lot of the answer that we have for the last one Wes you're able to stay in the code and whatever, if you are looking for that flow state still and you're looking to have that much of a handle, yeah.

I'm not saying you got too many things going on at once, but I do, and that can help you stay into the code a bit more, stay become an active participant in the code.

I think the the skill of being able to focus on what it is that you're doing and not just because you simply can, not just try to chase every single squirrel is is going to be a very high skill that people are gonna you're gonna need to get better at at these types of things because it's it's way too easy to just fire up a thousand things at a time. And and, generally, you you kinda do have to have more than one thing cooking at once.

I guess it really depends on what you're doing here because, like, if you're working on like, if I'm working on, like, a small little feature of, like like, a UI element, I don't really find that the back and forth with the LLM takes that long that I need to simply just wait. You know? Like, if you're firing up something that is such a massive project where you're, like, fifteen minutes, you gotta wait for the agent to come back, yeah, maybe you have to switch back and forth. But the nitty gritty of getting into something, that's that's where I feel my most flow state is Wes you're just, like, in the, like, small little bits and really focusing in on, how something works.

Yeah. For me, I've quite a bit of trouble as well hitting that flow state like I used to in the coding. And I think, like, where where I do hit it the best is where I'm, like, in the research. I'm figuring out problems. I don't hit it when I'm just, like, doing the same old in making pnpm box and updating a database. You know? Like, that type of stuff, that crud, that that's over. You know? Like, that type of stuff is not exciting to me because it's such low stakes. But where it is, it's it's maybe a little layer peeled back as to, like, how do I architect this thing? How do I how do I drive it? What are the technologies that I should choose? How does this thing work? Trying to dip into areas that maybe I have not even necessarily hit before and and figure those things out with AI. That's where I hit my sort of flow state, and that's where I get that oomph and that excitement again.

That oomph.

Oomph.

Oomph. Oomph. There it is. Yeah. Alright. Next question from doctor Fuzzface, and I intentionally hid this question from Scott. So I'm curious what his thoughts are just, like, on a first glance. It says, given what you have heard about at protocol from Dan Abramov so a couple episodes ago, we had Dan Abramov come on, and he talked about how app protocol is not just for wieners that are on blue sky, but it's actually kind of an exciting thing for publishing content.

So the question goes on to say, how do you think it stands up against Solid, which is the Tim Berners Lee backed one? They are clearly taking different approaches, but I like what Dan is saying in taking a scrape first mentality.

Pods, which is the Solid which is not Solid JS. Solid, this just seems to be another approach from Tim Berners Lee.

They have this thing called pods. They seem to be technical hurdles for end users, and he links to solidproject.org.

So I have intentionally hidden this question from Scott, and I'm I just landed Scott on this website, and I'm gonna ask him, hey, Scott.

What is Solid from doing a quick glance at the website?

Solid. Get involved. Help shape the future. Solid. Solid. Your data. Your choice. Advancing the web to empower people and communities. Okay. So far, a big old nothing here.

Get a solid bond. Then a quote from Tim.

Okay.

Read about Solid. Solid is an evolution of the Wes by its creator. K.

Interested in getting your own solid developed with Solid. Okay. So what is it? You know what, Wes? It's funny.

I see now why you gave this to me. But I I I've all like, I in the past, I I've, like, always, like, really prided myself Wes I visit a project, looking at a Node page and being like, they need somebody to just come up with a one sentence what the heck this thing is because there's so many things like this that their creators just don't tell you what the hell it is. Alright. I'm on the about Solid page. Imagine having your own online storage. Okay. So is it a database? Is it a bucket? You store information once and decide who can access once. When you need services like a mortgage applications or medical care, This is what Solid can do. It's a bit like carrying your data in a rucksack. Okay. And then they have backpack in parentheses. Okay. Just put backpack. Everybody knows what that okay.

With lots of pockets, access to data. Okay. So is it a database? So or is it a a bucket? Solid lets you take control of the data, combine it with the new okay. Okay. Solid is a file system for the web.

Brother, just put that in the same way that you can Scott a PDF on your laptop. Okay. So is it cloud hosting? What is it? Solow lets you put documents in an online file system where you have control. Okay? Yeah. That that starts to make sense a little bit more. Yeah. Yeah? Your data remains yours even when you change providers, change new services, applications, or AI agents. Okay. That kinda makes sense. Yes. Okay.

All data stored in solid pods is stored in standard open interoperable inter operable. Why can't I say that? Data formats and protocols. We are investing in the open source. Okay.

So what what do I do with this thing? Do I I get a solid pod? Do I get I get a pod You get a pod. You put your data in it. From one of these various providers. I put my data in it, and then I have solid apps. There's kind of a lot of solid apps here. I'm kind of surprised. No. There's not that many, but still

okay. This k. This seems like an awesome idea, but I just I always go back to, like, the normie usage. Like, you're gonna give normal people and this is probably not ready for normal people just yet. Right? But I just can't see regular people who think Facebook is the Internet and ask on Facebook groups, is the is the store open, right now? I just can't see them doing something like this, and there's just this space that just makes so much sense.

You have your own data. You control it all, but, like and people aren't gonna be able to manage their own data. People lose everything all the time. People can't even manage their own passwords.

Even, like, I was You should see my Google Drive, and I'm I'm a tech guy. Yeah. See? And, like, are you I was watching a TikTok on somebody made a funny TikTok about, like, how I don't wanna think about remember a single password. And all the comments were like, what the hell is a passkey? I hate passkeys. No chance. Passkeys never work. And it's just all normal people being like, passkeys suck. I hate passkeys. No. No. No. No. And it's like, I was so sad. Because, like, that was our chance. That was our chance. Our final chance. The passkeys are awesome. We fumbled it. We fumbled it. And, like, now regular people just don't understand what a passkey is, and they hate it. And it doesn't work very well, and it's too confusing to them. They just want to be able to log in to their thing, and they don't care about security.

So I don't think that it's it's exciting. It's interesting, and I I love it from, like, a, like, a holistic techie point of view, but I just don't see something like this having major uptake, unfortunately, as much as it pains me to say that.

Yeah. And, also, you gotta make it look good. I'm sorry. You gotta make it look good. You gotta make it be easy to use. You Node, I think too oftentimes, like, techy people, they they have techie good ideas, and then they just, like, don't focus on the usability of things. You know? Yeah.

Okay. Tim Smith. If you only have a budget to subscribe to one AI, which AI would you choose? You know what, Tim? This is the worst possible question for me because I like to change my stuff all the time. I like to chain I'm like, oh, well, let me try this. Let me try that. Let me try this. Let me try that.

If I had to pick one right now, I would probably pick OpenAI Node Yeah. Plan because I can do design and CSS.

And even though Claude is so much endlessly better at that than than chat g p t, the chat g p t models I found have just been more reliable with getting me the code I want that works the way I want it. And just that's just how it is for me right now at this very second. But guess what, Tim? That could change any single day. That could change any day, and it could change depending on which harness you're using. And so that's that's one of them that I I feel like it depends on how much you're spending too because some of those plans, they just don't make sense unless you're paying the big boy $2,200 or $200 a month plan to get access to the best models, the biggest, baddest boys in the Yarn, and have them doing the work. Right? Because I I like the biggest, baddest boys in the yard doing the work. If I'm gonna have somebody doing the work, that's not me. It's gonna be the biggest baddest boys in the yard. And so, Tim, I I think that the GPT subscription at that cost will get you there.

But still, man, I don't I don't know. Oh, you know, like, if you subscribe to open router, you're gonna be burning a

crazy amount of tokens just trying to Yeah. We're talking about, like, pure cost here. The, like, 100 or $200 a month plan from Anthropic or OpenAI is probably the best deal around right now. They're they're I don't know. We always say, oh, they're losing money on this type of thing, but, like, that's it's probably your best deal right now. And then between those two, I'm probably leaning towards Node right now because you can use it with alternative harnesses. Like, you can use it with Node, whereas with, Anthropic, they're trying to push everybody into just straight up using cloud code for the subscriptions. You can, of course, you can use it with OpenRouter. You can use it with the API tokens, etcetera, etcetera.

But it's a really interesting space right now where some of these providers are trying to push you into their thing because they wanna lock you into that ecosystem because the switching costs of these are so low, right now. Like, the the switching like, the the one thing that you have that's bad, which is, oh, I was on OpenAI, and my chats are now no longer in there. Right? And I think that that's probably a good way that these companies are going to try to lock you in Wes, like, oh, you you can't switch to one because all of your chats are locked up. Like, can you even, like, export and import your chats from one to another? I don't even know. But That's somebody something somebody should build. I don't I don't even know. But if you look at Apple, I don't Node right now. Scott many new chats constantly. I'm like, I do not hold my chats homey, and I do not continue to use them because they get worse over time, obviously. Yeah. Yeah.

But, like, it it's so the switching costs are so low. Like, you could you just go to the model selector, and you can even continue on your same chat on a totally different provider in a lot of these types of things. And, like, I don't think they they want that because then as soon as one gets really more expensive, then you just you flip to the next one that's losing money. But I would say, what, 08/11/2026, Node is probably that right now, but we'll see what what that switches. I bet Google is gonna gonna have something or Meta, Grok. Like, these things are gonna all be better. That's the other thing is, like, the Grok. If you pay for, like, premium Twitter, premium plus, just weird, that's a cracker in Canada, You get, like, a certain amount of grok available. So then there's all these, like, weird things Wes, like, oh, well, I get it for free with my x, y, and z. You know? My my cell phone plan comes with $40 a month of of this, so then I'll use that first. And then, we bought a Yarn, and at Costco, they gave us, like, free GROC or nothing. You know? It's gonna be you're gonna be seeing that type of stuff where people just, like you bundle it in. It it comes with your cable subscription.

I got 20 tokens for free when I bought a, a chicken wrap at what did you call it? Chicken a chicken bake at, Costco. Yes. I I gotta use my Costco tokens because I bought a chicken bake. I, I agree. You Node? I I think the one thing that you can do, Tim, that JS, beneficial to you is get a setup going where you can make your stuff portable.

Because let's say I want to do clod code for a month, and clod code makes us the worst out of things, but you can just sim link everything up, all your skills and all your agents' files and whatever. You you can set up systems to do that. And and if you do, then, like, you can try claud code for a month. And even though claud code sucks because the claud code TUI sucks, but it also tries to keep you in it.

As long as you can make your stuff portable and your processes portable, then you can move from one harness to another harness, from one agent to another agent model, whatever. And to me, that is, like, the major unlock rather than,

like, really investing all of my time into one harness and one model. One tool I'm taking a look at, and I haven't tried this just yet, but it's from Vercel Sullivan. He's the guy that built Answer Overflow. We've talked about him many times on the podcast. But he's he's building executor.s h, which is essentially connect all of your tools to everything. Because this is one problem I have is that I use all of the tools, and I have to, like they're all slightly different. Sometimes they'll discover all of the skills and the MCP servers, but sometimes they won't. But, like, I have Versus Node, Cloud Code, Cursor, Node, Py. You know? I I use them all so I can talk about them, and it's so frustrating to have to to set them all up somewhat differently and make sure they're all properly you know? Like, the one I use a lot is the the CloudFlare MCP, and I have to, like, log in with all of them and whatnot. So this is supposed to solve that pain. They got Cloud Code Cursor and Codecs going into the big e, and then you've got, what, Sentry. You get your Sentry set up with with that, and you can use them with any tools, GitHub, Linear, all of those types of things.

I'm gonna set this up after because I've just sold it to myself, but this is exciting. Into the biggie.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I I mean, I I've seen this. I've taken a look at it. I agree. Like, the I think the hardest thing for me making things transferable is the MCP stuff. I think the MCP stuff is the hardest because everybody has their own MCP config style, and that's annoying to have to move that stuff over. And once I get my MCP set up, I I tend to just, like I don't know if I I'm, like, adding more MCPs, and I tend to be adding more CLIs.

Some MCPs are are very good still for me, but I have been doing more just straight up CLIs and then either having, like, a skill or something.

Yeah. Because once it's a CLI, they're they're signed in, and and everything has access to that then. Right? That's that works well. Yeah. One I'll I'll actually share something too. And this is not like,

this is not as this is not the same thing. Something that I've been using, Wes, is this warp club.

Swamp club is the swamp club does a great job of telling you exactly what it is up front, deterministic automation for AI agents.

And so you set up your your processes here to reach for things that can be automated in a way. So, like, Wes. This is a different problem, Tim. But if if, like, one thing I've been doing is putting more of my stuff into Warp, and then now what I have to do is just simply use Swamp on my things. And then it's like, okay. I wanna provision a domain on CloudFlare.

Okay. Swamp has my automation, which is Node, not AI based, by the way. It is code Bos. So it just runs that automation that is code based to set up and provision a domain on Cloudflare. Okay. I wanna set up a and provision a local domain so that way I can access Wes across my network. It's in swamp. So whether that's cloud code hitting it in swamp or or pi or anything hitting in the swamp, it does it, and it does it the same way every time because it's code and not the AI doing it. So I've been really, really loving this tool to do, make things more portable.

Awesome. I'm gonna check that out. That's great. I I just love this whole, like, get your setup as movable as possible, and then you're as we go through all these crazy changes and and rug pulls or whatever, are you so easy to switch to something else? Yeah. Get your go bag. Doing what you're doing. Yep. Yes.

Alright. Jimpo Wes says, hey. Scott Wes, CJ, long time listener from Sweden. I bounce between embedded c, Postgres, and a bit of front end. That's that is quite the stack.

I keep running into the same thing. When do you actually drop a tool that still works and is still maintained? My question is where the pressure really comes from. Is it the tool itself getting worse, or is it everything around it? Hiring, libraries drying up, CI integration, the can someone else pick this up in two years problem? Has this there been a specific moment where you realize something perfectly functional has quietly become too expensive to keep. And as a bonus question, he says, any migration you regretted, what did you think you'd gain versus what you actually got? Yes. This is really interesting question because there is a sweet spot in between hanging on to the good old trusty, faithful thing that works well, is well supported, has has been doing you Wes, and then it starts to creak, starts to get older, and you start to say, I can't hire for it. A lot of the examples don't work work as well as as they thought. A lot of the new libraries that that come out are integrated.

Perfect example I've had in this one is is Express. You know? I hung on to Express for probably three or four years longer than than most people did, And I finally got to a point where the TypeScript story for it sucked.

The integration of everything modern sucked. A lot of the new stuff that I wanted to use were not based on, like, the middleware, so I had to write these, like, conversion middlewares to go from express middleware to web Wes and web response middleware. And I finally got to a point where I'm like, this is more of a pain than it being old faithful that just works ESLint this battle tested and whatever. I need to move over to I moved to Hano.

So that is a a perfect example of something where where I have that. And and even, like I don't know. You you're gonna hire a young gun to work on something? They would have no idea what this thing is. It hasn't been around for it's obviously well used, but it's it's not the, like, the the tool that people pick out of the box these days. So that and and not to mention, like, speed and all that type of stuff. So I'm curious what Scott has to say about this because Scott is maybe the opposite Wes he loves to switch and migrate to things. Have you ever regretted any of those moves?

Yeah. I would probably say I regretted moving, I probably regretted moving to GraphQL, and I probably regretted moving a lot of things. You Node, this is gonna seem kind of crazy because Meteor, even when I migrated off of Meteor, it was definitely kind of past its time in which people were really deeply using it.

But the moment that I moved off of Meteor to a React based custom stack and then to GraphQL and then to this and then to that and whatever for level up tutorials.

It didn't it never felt as good as the meteor site did until I moved to SvelteKit.

Yeah. That Wes the only time that it ever felt as good as the Meteor based site. And even then, it didn't feel as good to work in because I had to roll my own custom auth for it, and I had to maintain so much more code. And the Meteor version of the site, honestly, probably would still be working just fine today.

And JS far as I know, like, Meteor continues to update and continues to improve itself. So, like, I I probably should've just stayed on that. That's one thing there. And and even to take that further, because the Meteor version of it was great. The probably the the, you know, the the biggest update there that I had Deno, but the original version of the level up tutorial site was done in Drupal.

And I should have kept it on Drupal. I I would have been fine to have it on Drupal years and years and years later. I Wes still would have been happy to have it fine on Vercel, e e even today, just giving it a a modern, pink sheen or even, like, just a custom UI instead of moving the data, moving the database, moving ESLint to Meteor, and then moving it to this. And then now okay. Oh, it's on MongoDB still and blah blah blah. Like, I am the worst person for this stuff because I you know, the the old heads were right that you you should've just stayed on what you you know, there's no sense in changing stuff that isn't, you know, the for a marginal improvement and sometimes Yeah. A detriment to the code base. And, oh, I understand the gray beards JS my beards. I think in most cases,

you can stick around until the thing that you wanna jump to is very clearly the thing that you wanna move to and not the thing that is being hyped up or not the thing that is exciting and and people are are trying to patch it altogether. But and once it's at a point where, like, yeah, lots of people are using this, I think it is is it's maybe, like I would say that's probably three years past the first time you hear people say something is dead. You know, Sass is another good example where lots of websites still running on Sass for their CSS.

It's it's probably fine. But probably what? We we had the show probably three years ago. It says, is Sass dead? If you're still on it, I think now JS the time to switch to just using modern CSS.

We have everything pretty much everything that you can do in Sass, and there is new stuff in CSS that is not compatible with Sass.

Yes.

Yes. I we used to say, like, don't switch to something until you've heard us talk about it, like, four or five times. And Yeah. Maybe that's not necessarily as true in the in the modern sense here now that we just have AI go go fix it, make write in and Wes for me this week, AI, actually. Yep. Really feeling like I I'm in a Rust mood this week, so rewrite my whole stack in Rust.

So, yeah, I don't know. Things changed. Switching costs

are much lower these days.

Yes. Word. Cool. Next one here from Luan.

Most of the UX quality we see today in React based component libraries and design systems come from primitive tooling libraries, packages like base UI, React ARIA, Radix, floating UI, etcetera.

That pushes the bar and made ShadCN the success it is today. As a Django developer with heavy, heavy leaning on UI and UX, traditional SSR and MPA sites, multipage application sites, and software will always be built using good old template and HTML rendered by the back end. With all that said, how could we achieve the same level of UX quality for traditional frameworks? I'm doing something close to a component library internally at my job using floating UI. It gets close, but never 100% either due to weirdness in the browsers or just not having enough time and deep pockets to dedicate to building good old HTML, CSS, and JS component library that gets close to what Shad c n has.

Have I been missing a magical library that could fix drop down tool tip positioning, hover focus Scott helpers, and all that jazz? It takes hours and hours to get done well.

My gosh, Milan, I would say Wes components Wes components.

Hey. Web components.

Web Awesome, I think, is a good, good thing there to to give a check a try. Part of the reason why traditional, multipage applications don't feel well is because you're missing some of the stuff that you you get by just swapping out one little part of the page or one little tiny island of interaction without having to, wire up unique JavaScript for each things. And things like, the page transitions API can now do multi page applications in some browsers, could give you a level of, like, polish that you're not getting. But in terms of organizing and things like that, if I were you, I would look at web component frameworks that exist using web standards, web components. That's the answer to me.

Yeah. I agree with this as Wes, where it's like you don't have the time to do it all from scratch. You don't maybe haven't found everything. That's why people reach for a lot of these libraries or, like, lower level things that will help you build something like a ShadCN because it's it's all done for you. I think we've said this probably for years.

The the web is slowly getting to a spot where you don't necessarily need a lot of these things because the primitives are getting so good. Mhmm.

But along with that, you just, like, you gotta look at, like, what are people that are doing what you're doing, which is traditional server side rendered React, JavaScript sprinkles on top. What are they using? A really good example of something to look for is Caleb Porzio. We've had him on the show in the past. He's the author of Alpine JS, which is Mhmm.

The ability to, like it's like JavaScript sprinkles on top. A lot of your interaction is done simply in your HTML template rendering. Right? He has a component library called Flux UI that has most of the things that you're talking about here. Right? Tooltip, pop up, breadcrumbs, all of the things that you're used to, and it's all built with Alpine JS. So I'll probably take a look at what is the, probably, what's the Laravel community doing with a lot of the stuff? And they're all reaching for LiveWire,

Ruby communities on Hotwire, Alpine JS, and that Flux UI is the component library for that. Yeah. And, hey, I'm gonna throw my hat in the ring here and say graffiti UI. Graffiti-ui.com is a standards based CSS only library for this stuff. Now it will get you in that we don't prioritize older browser support, So, that's one thing, but it it is like a the base layer for a lot of these components and the idea if it is like an HTML based version of something like Shad c n. However, there's no JavaScript.

You can obviously augment this with JavaScript, but, hey. It's, that's where it's at. Check it out.

Random Scott says, are you using Hermes or a similar tool? What are you using for? What model are you using? How much does it cost you per month? Are you happy with it? Hat random cat. I am using Hermes, and I'm primarily using as an agent interface that my wife can use instead of chat g p t. She fires up a custom UI that I built, and she chats with it. And I control the models and stuff like that. Currently, just on codecs, I use Sol because we're not using it that often.

I have been thinking about replacing that and ripping it out, though. Not because I don't like Hermes. I like Hermes, but I went a little too maximalist with it, and I made, like, eight different profiles that all have different specialties, and I just realized Yeah. You have, like like, trip planning features.

It has so much stuff in it, and it doesn't need that. Not that it's, like, a problem. It's just like it doesn't need it. It doesn't need it. Because we are using it for trip planning, and we're using it for different things and those but, like, I think I went to maximalist on the actual process of it all. So I've been, like, thinking about just ripping that out and having, like, maybe even, like, pie based agents that accept requests when they come in and whatever.

Yep.

Going more minimal with that.

And so, yeah, I am using Hermes. I do like Hermes for lots of things. It is a context hog. It loves context.

So that's something to keep in mind. But Vercel, as a harness and as a thing like, I just used Hermes a moment ago before we started the show because I have my NAS on my tail Scott network, and my VPN that the NAS is on and my tail scale network were, like, not working after a power surge. So I just go into my thing and say, hey. I can't get into my, NAS via tail scale right now.

Can you figure out why it looks fine from the UI? And it was like, yes. Just happened and then fixed it for me. Just SSH didn't fix it. What'd it do? I don't know. I'll check it out after this show. But, so that's what I use. I use Hermes for just kind of personal assistant stuff and investigating things like that for me and my systems. Yeah.

I a lot of this stuff where, like, we had OpenClaw or, like, your own personal assistant, a lot of this stuff is just simply just folding into the tools that we we use to code. Right? Like, my all use cloud code or OpenCode or cursor or whatever for all these things. And and you saw that also with, like, chat GPT and the Node app have now merged, and now they're they're just one app. Right? And it doesn't matter. Like, you don't have to do this whole thing where, am I asking a question? Do I go to chat g p t app? Or am I coding something? Do I go to the the codecs app or whatever? It's simply just, like, one app, you go to it, and it it can do whatever it is that you want. And, like, one kind of cool thing is you can turn a chat into a project if you're like, this is kinda interesting. Let's let's go down that route. So I'm not using any self hosted stuff at the moment. I've certainly tried it all, but I'm I'm just using my agent Yarn. Whatever the one I it is of the day, again, I'm using them all JS my,

my assistant thing. Yeah. I think for me, Wes, the reason why JS, like, I I so I gave it to Courtney, and she can, like, prompt it to build little apps and stuff. And then Yeah. By all accounts, does on the network and gives them to her on her phone or creates Pretty sweet. PDFs, and she can use it as an agent rather than having to, like, be locked into just, like, chat GPT doing everything. You know? And and it's, like, it's totally different when the process is all writing files on your your your local system.

Yeah. So

We'll see. I I do kinda have that itch. And I think as we get into the spot where you can run these things locally or you can run them significantly cheaper. I think I'll probably dip into that as well and and maybe even dip into, like, something. We we talked about, like, giving kids access to this type of thing. You know? Like, what does that start to look like once you have six people doing this? I'm not paying for a six person license to one of these things for everyone to use. You Node? That's gonna be way too expensive. Yeah. My kids had an agent. Screwed by, Netflix. You know? Netflix used to be $12. And what is it now? I don't know. Like, $300

a month, something crazy like that? And I've never been one of those people that complains about the quality of the stuff on Netflix, but come on. Yeah. It's gotten just it's bad.

It's bad. I I'm not happy with any of the new stuff on Netflix. I you know, I am you know, I'm turning into that person. Like, what what? What? Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Why do they gotta put podcasts on Netflix? Who's sitting down and being like, let me put on a podcast on Netflix? Come on. Who cares? Who's the games? My Who's playing games on Netflix? We pull her on

on the TV. She does she does it on YouTube, but, like, if again, we talk about normies. My wife will put a, like, a Amy Poehler podcast on the TV while she's doing something, you know, sewing or or running around the house and just kinda have something on. So I get it. I get it. Maybe people aren't doing that with coding podcasts, but they are doing it with with, celebrities.

I just don't care about that. No. They don't care about that, and I want it I I want every app to be, finely tuned for the things that I care about, specifically. Yes. Alright. Let's move into sick picks. This is a section of the show where we pick things that are sick, and I am going to sick pick

this amazing battery bank. This is the Charge, s h a r g e. And, Scott, I know you have one of these as well because I have the Charge two, and I now recently got the Charge ICE Mag three. And this is an awesome power bank because let me tell you what it does. It's MagSafe, so you just, like, clip it on to your phone, and it will automatically just start charging.

The version three has a built in USB C cord, which I absolutely love because when I'm usually using a power bank is when I'm, like, traveling.

And what I like to do is I like to throw it in my pocket or throw it in my bag, and then, like, you have to make sure you also have, like, a cable. And I just love having a tiny little cable built in, And then, of course, it has a USB c on it. It also has a fan in it, and it does, like I turned the the colors off because they're kind of obnoxious, but it has, like, LEDs in it. There we go. You can maybe you can see this.

Oh, you got some obnoxious LEDs you can tell. I Node, and it looks cool.

It's it is so good. Like, I bought a second one because I lost mine, and that's something that I do. But then I found it. Now I have two, and the the magnet on it is so high quality. I absolutely love it. And I know battery banks is not something a lot of people are buying anymore because your phone will typically last all day, but it is so nice. Even the kids sometimes are like, oh, my iPad's dead, and I don't wanna sit near the plug.

I'll just be like, oh, here. Here's a here's a battery. You know? You can you can plug it in while you're watching it. So if you're looking for very Node. Get the Charge IceMag three. There's a little stand in it too. It's so cool.

It is cool. It's a cool one. I like it. I like it. I like the stand. I use it, while traveling. It's my my favorite one to use while traveling. So, yes, big fan. I love the Charge.

Shout out to the folks at Versus Code who hooked me up with one of them, when I went there to the Versus Code Summit. So, that's where I got mine, and I love it.

I'm going to sick pick an ESP 32 s three Node point six four inch AMOLED touch display development board, twenty two eighty four six five sixty six resolution, 16.7 m color, QSPI interface Wi Fi, BLE five support, onboard six access IMUTF card Scott USB UART ITC.

This little guy let's see if I can.

It JS an Wes 32. So it's it's a ESP 32, and it has Wi Fi. It has a gyroscope.

It has accelerometer in it. Bluetooth.

All that stuff, and it has a touchscreen out of the box. So if you're the type of person who wants to get into ESP stuff, building little computers or little interesting things like that, I had bought one ESP, and I bought a gyroscope for it, and I bought an accelerometer for it, and I bought all this stuff for it. And then I was like, this one has all of it in here JS well as a touch screen, and it is this is tiny. It is so tiny. It is the coolest little thing, and I haven't started working on it yet. I have a secret project that I'm gonna be, showing. It's for my my Century Hack Week project.

I am so stoked to have this little thing, and I guess how much this little thing Wes? It's $30.30 bucks. And that's $30 on Amazon.

They're, like, $20 on wave share. So, they are they are very cheap. That? It's the manufacturer of the display. So you can get it for, you can get it for way, way, way cheaper.

But I needed it faster, so I got it from Amazon for $34.

Either way,

super cool little device. Super cool. I actually have a couple of those on order. I have a whole box of this is my ESP 32 box, and it is I just have dozens of them. I've got the little, the little docks for them, and I have tons of little sensors, little buck converters, Vercel Bluetooth modules. I even have look at this one.

Look how small. That is a screen.

It's the size of my thumb. I have a Wes 32 with a screen that is the size of my thumbnail.

And it's unbelievable that It is great. Computers can do this. And now they're they're gaining popularity right now.

Steve from teal draw has been, like, posting about them on his Twitter account. If you wanna go look at some fun examples, go look at his Twitter account because he's he's they're so easy to program now with AI. You don't have to know c or you don't have to load, like, micro Python. That's something a lot of people would do. Or you don't have to load up this, like, Arduino, like, crappy IDE for it. You know? You can just prompt away whatever it is that you want, and it works super well.

I'm I'm super excited to to to do my Hack Week project here, which JS involves all of these little components here, Wes. This little Adafruit microphone is so stinking tiny.

I'm I'm stoked. I'm very stoked. I got a I got a whole like you said, I got a whole just bag full of bags full of stuff Goodies. Sitting around here. Goodies. Yes.

Look at this keyboard. Look at this little guy. So you're building, can you tell us what you're building? Well, this is going to be for a different project, and I've decided to change focus for a little bit. So I I I'm going to do a Cyberdeck for myself, not for Hack Week. I'm doing something else for Hack Week Node. But it's it's hardware. But so yeah. So my, like, Cyberdeck shell that I was working on is, like, basically I I had to change the screen so the dimensions don't quite fit. Looks like a Blackberry.

It oh, it looks like a chunky BlackBerry. Yes.

It looks like a chunky BlackBerry. It's gonna be on a Raspberry Pi, but this thing is gonna be really sick in general. It's gonna be just a cool little, full on computer in a little Cyberdeck package. I'm gonna do something fun with it. I got I got a lot of devices going here, Wes. I got an e ink screen over here that,

I'm looking at for a different form factor of device. This is another let's just show random technology we have on our desk. I have the Terminal X, which is the new e ink Yes. Super big display.

And boy, oh, boy, this thing is so freaking cool, and the battery lasts. I I was, like, looking at how long the battery lasts.

Yeah. Like, if you have it refreshed every

forty minutes, it lasts, like, six months or something crazy like that. My terminal x is in the kitchen. It's Node a family device. But my terminal my original terminal is just sitting on my desk. So this is the little one, and it's got the cool clear colorway.

But the, the the one that I the terminal x is in my my kitchen, and the family loves it because I had been putting, like, daily Calvin and Hobbes and Yarn Side comics on it, and the kids go up and check whatever the new comic is every day and stuff. It's got the calendar, the family calendar, and all that stuff. Man, the terminal devices are are sick. They're great.

So much fun stuff. Cool.

That's all we have for you today. Let us know down below or syntax.fm.

Hit on the potluck button. Ask us your question, and we'll answer in a future episode. Peace.