Reading list
Articles
Short pieces on dependency, ownership, and coding without AI. Then the test.
Tools
Devin: The Hype, and What Independent Testing Found
3 min read
Cognition Labs' Devin made headlines with a 13.86% benchmark score. Here's what that number actually meant, and what happened when an independent team gave it 20 real tasks.
Research
The AI Coding Productivity Paradox
3 min read
Developers using AI tools estimated they were 20% faster. They were actually 19% slower. The gap between those two numbers might be the most important AI coding statistic of 2026.
Burnout
Vibe Coding Burnout Isn't the Same Thing as Dependency
3 min read
Dependency and burnout aren't the same problem, even though they show up in the same AI-heavy workflow. Confusing them means treating the wrong thing.
Incidents
Vibe Coding Disasters: What Actually Happened
3 min read
A production database wiped mid-freeze. 1.5 million leaked API keys. These aren't warnings — they already happened. What went wrong, in each case.
Labor market
The Junior Developer Hiring Crisis, By the Numbers
3 min read
Entry-level tech employment for 22-25 year-olds is now 19% below less AI-exposed fields — up from a 13% gap a year earlier. Here's what the research says, and doesn't say.
Self-check
When Your AI Coding Tool Goes Down
3 min read
Your AI coding tool has an outage. Your reaction to that ten minutes tells you more about your dependency than a month of normal usage does.
Security
Is Vibe Coding Actually Dangerous?
3 min read
CVEs tied to AI-generated code went from 6 to 35 in a single month. Here's what the data says, and what a "Challenger disaster" comparison from a well-known security researcher actually meant.
Language
"Vibe Coding": What the Word Actually Means
2 min read
Google searches for "vibe coding" rose roughly 2400% in a year. The word made it into the dictionary. Here's what it originally meant, and what it's come to mean since.
Teams
Are PMs Replacing Developers?
3 min read
Developers on several teams report the same pattern: PMs taking specs straight to AI agents, with developers brought in mainly to review. Is this widespread, or specific to how some teams are choosing to work?
Workflow
Context Engineering vs. Vibe Coding
3 min read
"Context engineering" is the term serious AI-assisted teams have moved to. Is it a real distinction from vibe coding, or just a more respectable name for the same thing?