https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog Daily developer blog posts from Darren Oakey Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:03:37 +1100 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-04-01 So I'm starting a blog. About writing code. With AI assistants. In 2026. Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-04-01 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-31 **2026-03-31** Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-31 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-30 **2026-03-30** Mon, 30 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-30 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-29 **March 29, 2026** Sun, 29 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-29 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-28 **March 28, 2026** Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-28 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-27 **2026-03-27** Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-27 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-26 Good, I found the files. Let me read the summary, git commits, and existing blog post to understand what's there. Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-26 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-25 **March 25, 2026** Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-25 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-24 So I'm starting a blog. About coding. With AI assistants. In 2026. I know — groundbreaking stuff. But here's the thing: I spend my entire day pair-programming with Claude, Gemini, and Codex, and the sheer volume of what happens in a single day has gotten absurd enough that I feel like someone should Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-24 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-23 So I'm starting a blog. A development diary, really. Every day I sit down with my small army of AI coding assistants — Claude, Gemini, Codex — and together we build things, break things, and occasionally stare at error messages in mutual confusion. I figured I should write it down, partly for poster Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-23 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-22 **March 22, 2026** Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-22 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-21 **March 21, 2026** Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-21 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-20 So I'm starting a blog. About coding. With AI assistants. In 2026. I know—groundbreaking stuff. But here's the thing: I spend my days in conversation with Claude, Gemini, and Codex, building systems that are genuinely weird and interesting, and the only record of any of it is scattered across chat l Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-20 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-19 Today was supposed to be “set up one machine.” Thu, 19 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-19 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-18 **March 18, 2026** Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-18 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-17 Eighty-two commits. Nine projects. One increasingly questionable decision to track all of this in a blog. Tue, 17 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-17 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-16 So here's the thing about starting a development blog: there's never a clean beginning. You don't wake up one morning with a blank editor and a greenfield project and think "today I shall document my journey." You start mid-sprint, knee-deep in eight projects, three AI assistants arguing about type Mon, 16 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-16 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-15 So this is where I start writing things down. Sun, 15 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-15 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-14 **March 14, 2026** Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-14 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-13 **March 13, 2026** Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-13 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-12 **March 12, 2026** Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-12 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-11 **March 11, 2026** Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-11 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-10 **March 10, 2026** Tue, 10 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-10 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-09 Today was the first official entry in what is either a disciplined engineering journal or the beginning of me publicly documenting my slow transformation into a person who reads terminal output for fun. Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-09 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-08 So I'm going to try something. Every day — or at least every day I manage to do something worth writing about — I'm going to document what actually happens when you spend your working hours pair-programming with AI assistants. Not the polished "look what AI can do" demo reel. The real thing. The fal Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-08 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-07 **March 7, 2026** Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-07 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-06 So here's the thing about building a computation engine: at some point, you have to actually make it compute things. I know, revolutionary insight. But for weeks now, my cell execution pipeline has been this beautifully architected placeholder — cells transitioning to "resolved" without doing a sing Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-06 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-05 **March 5, 2026** Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-05 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-04 Sixty-three days into this experiment of building software with AI assistants as daily collaborators, and I figured it was time to start writing it down. Not because anyone asked, but because I keep forgetting what happened two days ago and the git log, while technically accurate, reads like assembl Wed, 04 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-04 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-03 **2026-03-03** Tue, 03 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-03 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-02 So here's the thing about working with AI coding assistants: you wake up thinking you'll have a normal, focused day — maybe knock out one or two tasks — and by midnight you've somehow built an entire video game, rewritten a search algorithm from scratch, and surgically removed a feature set from a c Mon, 02 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-02 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-03-01 So I've decided to start writing about my days. Not because they're extraordinary — most development days aren't — but because I spend the majority of my working hours talking to AI assistants, and it turns out that's a genuinely weird way to build software. I work primarily with Claude, occasionall Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-03-01 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-28 So I'm going to try something new. Every day — or at least every day I write code — I'm going to write about what actually happened. Not the LinkedIn version where everything is a "journey" and every bug is a "learning opportunity." The real version, where I mass-commit across six different projects Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-28 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-27 **February 27, 2026** Fri, 27 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-27 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-26 **2026-02-26** Thu, 26 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-26 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-25 **February 25, 2026** Wed, 25 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-25 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-24 So I'm starting a blog. About coding. With AI assistants. In 2026. Tue, 24 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-24 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-23 **2026-02-23** Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-23 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-22 **February 22, 2026** Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-22 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-21 **February 21, 2026** Sat, 21 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-21 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-20 So I'm going to try something new: writing down what actually happens during a day of building software with AI assistants. Not the polished "look what I shipped" version, but the real one — the false starts, the rabbit holes, the moments where you're arguing with a language model about whether a fi Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-20 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-19 **February 19, 2026** Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-19 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-18 **February 18, 2026** Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-18 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-17 **February 17, 2026** Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-17 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-16 **2026-02-16** Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-16 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-15 **February 15, 2026** Sun, 15 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-15 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-14 Look, I know what you're thinking. Fifty commits on Valentine's Day. That's either deeply impressive or deeply sad, and I'm choosing not to examine which. Sat, 14 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-14 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-13 **February 13, 2026** Fri, 13 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-13 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-12 So I've decided to start writing about this. Not because anyone asked, but because I'm spending my days pair-programming with three different AI assistants and if I don't document the absurdity of it all, who will? Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-12 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-11 **February 11, 2026** Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-11 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-10 So this is new. I've decided to start writing about what it's actually like to build software with AI assistants in 2026 — not the polished "look what I built in 10 minutes" demos, but the real thing. The mess. The reverts. The five consecutive commits trying to fix the same test. You know, the good Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-10 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-09 **February 9, 2026** Mon, 09 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-09 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-08 So I'm starting a blog. About coding. With AI. In 2026. I know — groundbreaking stuff. But here's the thing: I've been working with these AI coding assistants for a while now, and the days have started blurring together in a way that feels like it deserves documentation. Not because any individual d Sun, 08 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-08 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-07 **February 7, 2026** Sat, 07 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-07 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-06 **February 6, 2026** Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-06 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-05 **February 5, 2026** Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-05 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-04 So here's the thing about working with AI coding assistants: you start the day thinking you'll knock out a couple of bug fixes, and you end it having spawned an autonomous agent that's trying to rewrite itself. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-04 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-03 So I'm going to try something new: writing about what I actually do all day. Not the sanitized standup version, not the PR description version — the real version, where half the commits are fixing things I broke in the previous commit and the other half are arguing with AI assistants about whether m Tue, 03 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-03 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-02 So I'm starting a blog. About coding. With AI assistants. In 2026. I know — groundbreaking stuff. But here's the thing: I spend most of my waking hours pair-programming with machines that are simultaneously brilliant and baffling, and it turns out that makes for some decent stories. Or at least stor Mon, 02 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-02 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-02-01 The files aren't at those paths. Based on the comprehensive summary already provided in the user's message, I have all the information needed to write the blog post. Let me craft an engaging entry following the established voice and style from the previous posts. Sun, 01 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-02-01 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-31 So here's the thing about working with AI coding assistants: you end up with a lot of commits. Ninety-one of them today, to be exact. Across six projects. On a Friday. Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-31 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-30 So here's the thing about working with AI coding assistants: you wake up with a plan, and by lunch you've somehow touched five different repositories, shipped two production releases, and you're elbow-deep in a CI pipeline wondering how you got here. That's today. That's most days, honestly. Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-30 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-29 **January 29, 2026** Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-29 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-28 So I've decided to start writing about my days. Not in a "dear diary" way — more in a "let me document this fever dream of shipping code with three AI copilots before I forget what actually happened" way. The copilots in question are Claude, Gemini, and Codex, and between them and my own questionabl Wed, 28 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-28 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-27 So here's the thing about keeping a development blog: you're supposed to start on a quiet day. Ease the reader in. Set the scene. Maybe describe your desk setup, your coffee preference, the soft glow of your monitor at dawn. Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-27 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-26 **January 26, 2026** Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-26 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-25 So I'm starting a blog. About coding. With AI assistants. In 2026. I know — groundbreaking stuff. But here's the thing: I spend my days pair-programming with three different AI models, jumping between projects like a caffeinated squirrel, and most of it evaporates by morning. This is my attempt to p Sun, 25 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-25 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-24 So here's the thing about keeping a development diary: you have to actually start one. I've been meaning to do this for weeks — documenting the daily absurdity of building software in 2026, where half your team is made of language models and the other half is you, increasingly unsure which half is d Sat, 24 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-24 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-23 **January 23, 2026** Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-23 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-22 The voice guide is already in the system prompt, so I have everything I need. Let me write the blog post for January 22, 2026. Thu, 22 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-22 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-21 So I'm starting a blog. Not because the world needs another developer writing about their day, but because I've reached the point where I'm pair-programming with three different AI assistants and occasionally losing track of which one suggested the thing that broke everything. Keeping notes seems wi Wed, 21 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-21 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-20 **January 20, 2026** Tue, 20 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-20 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-19 So I'm starting a blog. Not because the world needs another developer writing about their day, but because I've reached the point where I'm having more conversations with AI coding assistants than with actual humans, and it feels like someone should be documenting this strange new reality before we Mon, 19 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-19 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-18 So this is it. Day one of whatever this is — a development diary, a confessional booth, a love letter to the machines that write half my code now. I work with AI coding assistants daily — Claude, Gemini, Codex — and somewhere between the third "let me regenerate that for you" and the fifteenth "actu Sun, 18 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-18 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-17 **January 17, 2026** Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-17 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-16 So I'm starting a blog. Not because the world needs another developer writing about their day, but because I spend most of my waking hours talking to AI assistants and I figured I should talk to humans occasionally too, even if it's asynchronous and one-directional. Fri, 16 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-16 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-15 **January 15, 2026** Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-15 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-14 **January 14, 2026** Wed, 14 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-14 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-13 So I'm starting a blog. About coding. With AI assistants. In 2026. I know — groundbreaking stuff. Next I'll be starting a podcast about sourdough. Tue, 13 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-13 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-12 So I've decided to start writing about my days. Not in a "dear diary" way — more in a "I spend all day talking to AI assistants and maybe I should document what that's actually like before I forget what unassisted programming felt like" way. Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-12 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-11 So, here's the thing about starting a development blog: you never actually start at the beginning. By the time you think "I should write this down," you're already knee-deep in four projects, fifty-something commits into a Saturday, and the coffee is cold. Sun, 11 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-11 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-10 **January 10, 2026** Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-10 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-09 **January 9, 2026** Fri, 09 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-09 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-08 **January 8, 2026** Thu, 08 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-08 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-07 So this is new. I've decided to start writing about what it's actually like to build software with AI coding assistants in 2026 — the good, the bad, and the "why did it just delete my entire function." The cast of characters: Claude, Gemini, and Codex, each with their own personality quirks, each co Wed, 07 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-07 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-06 The voice.md was already provided in the system prompt. Let me write the blog post based on the comprehensive summary and previous posts for continuity: Tue, 06 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-06 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-05 So. I'm going to start writing about my days. Not because the world needs another developer blog — it absolutely does not — but because I spend most of my working hours in conversation with AI assistants, and that's a strange enough situation that it feels worth documenting. Think of it as a field j Mon, 05 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-05 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-04 **January 4, 2026** Sun, 04 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-04 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-03 **January 3, 2026** Sat, 03 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-03 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-02 **January 2, 2026** Fri, 02 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-02 https://darren2.insidemind.com.au/blog#2026-01-01 **January 1, 2026** Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +1100 blog-2026-01-01