iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 16/07/2026

Today I'm doing a lot of Iceberg development. On the surface - AI smashes out an entire, high quality feature in 20 minutes. Underneath - I spend endless hours thinking, architecting, and running small experiments to get to the point where AI can code it in 20 minutes.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 19/05/2026

AI may generate code faster than a human, but that isn't the bottleneck. A better question - how can you get clarity on what to build and whether it delivers value?

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 14/05/2026

Here's a fun thing to do - take a look through these 'laws' and consider how many of them change because... AI. lawsofsoftwareengineering.com/

lawsofsoftwareengineering.com

Laws of Software Engineering

A collection of principles and patterns that shape software systems, teams, and decisions.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 14/05/2026

AI doesn't feel so different. Where it gets interesting is when you work through all the noise and realise being effective with AI depends on exactly the same fundamentals as being effective without AI. Short feedback loops, small batch sizes, optimising for early user feedback etc.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 14/05/2026

Going round in circles. Anyone else feeling it? As software developers we're very susceptible to the silver bullet, shiny new thing that's going to make building stuff easier. Queue the fail loop: see shiny thing, adopt shiny thing, run into problems, see new shiny thing.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 13/05/2026

AI is a tool, not a strategy. AI is a tool, not a strategy. AI is a tool, not a strategy.

Bart Simpson writes "AI is a tool, not a strategy" repeatedly on a blackboard, suggesting a classroom setting.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 12/05/2026

The bottleneck just moves somewhere else. The challenge remains where it's always been - in collaborating to identify the highest impact ideas/theories, shortening feedback loops, reducing batch sizes.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 12/05/2026

The more I use AI for coding the more it becomes apparent - AI generating realms of code isn't speeding us up. If the goal is to solve problems, deliver value, meaningfully impact our users, then AI generating more code, more quickly doesn't cut it.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 11/05/2026

I've recently found myself pondering earlier career choices, wondering if I made a mis-step somewhere, worrying about AI I mean, I even switched from PC to Mac! But I've just realised what's going on. Mid-life crisis ain't it! Phew, for a minute I thought I was losing it.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 08/05/2026

The landscape is definitely shifting though. My sense is that people are drawn more to community, and live events (as a kind of pushback against AI everything). Regardless, I guess it's time to figure out where and how to meet people where they are (again!)

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 08/05/2026

Here's the thing though, people don't suddenly not have problems. And they will still gravitate towards people they trust. It's also true that people like Matt Pocock are having tremendously successful course launches addressing those problems.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 07/05/2026

Feeling unmoored right now? You're definitely not alone - it's not you, the world is weird and unsettling. Hang in there 👊

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 01/05/2026

With AI we're coding faster than ever! Moar code! But what if the bottleneck isn't: - Understanding the requirement - Writing the tests - Writing the code - Reviewing the code What if it's getting feedback from users?

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 28/04/2026

Where we seek to understand what's required, and why, and ask the right questions - preferably before we set AI lose and then wonder why it built the wrong thing.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 28/04/2026

In an AI world we can spend countless hours trying to automate everything, but let's not forget the step before that.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 28/04/2026

It wasn't a spec, or a design, but it did serve a crucial function - as a conversation starter. From which we were able to get to the heart of what was needed, and why.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 28/04/2026

At the time we probably dismissed this as 'the boss being the boss'. But, with a bit more experience under my belt, I see it differently now. They found a way to think through what they were asking for, and bring it to us.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 28/04/2026

An old boss of mine loved nothing more than to come to the dev team armed with a 'mockup' for a screen they wanted building. The mockup was, in fact, an Excel sheet, where they'd used the border tool to make it look like the picture in their head.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 24/04/2026

Are LLMs like car engines, and harnesses like cars? A Škoda Octavia and base Porsche Macan use the same VW engine platform. Same engine, wildly different driving experience.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 24/04/2026

Ask AI to remove it for you 😉

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 24/04/2026

Whatever it looks like, it's the slowest part of the entire lifecycle. Figure out how to alleviate that bottleneck, see where it moves to. Rinse and repeat.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 24/04/2026

Team struggling to ship? Identify the bottleneck - the one part of the system where work backs up. It might be obvious (you're swamped in code reviews because... AI). Or less obvious (devs waiting for clarification on requirements from a PM or designer).

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 23/04/2026

Here's a beautifully simple example. github.com/mattpocock/s... I've heard of people spending 45 minutes, even an hour or more in a conversation with their AI using this skill from Matt.

github.com

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 23/04/2026

A common thing I see is people instructing AI to do a task, but there's lots of value in having it push back so you can think through and articulate what you're trying to achieve, with it surfacing different angles etc.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 23/04/2026

Exactly, so what I'm talking about is instructing it to grill YOU. It's surprisingly good at asking follow up questions and digging deeper based on the answers you give (then summarising back what it 'heard').

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 23/04/2026

Right, and for people who are used to building things (especially us software developers), it can nudge us away from defaulting to "building a thing" as the way to solve the problem in the first place.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 23/04/2026

If I could magic one thing into the world it would be that more people leverage AI to help THEM think through, analyse and define the problem they're trying to solve. Before AI writes any code.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 22/04/2026

AI amplifies what you're doing. Good, or bad.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 22/04/2026

There's no great mystery to shorter feedback loops. AI or not, everything improves when you ask "how quickly can we find out?"

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 17/04/2026

Would you trust your credit score to that finance calculator? AI might write the code, it may even be as competent as a junior developer. But whether it's humans or AI - building software demands details, examples, guardrails, and feedback loops to test what's being built.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 17/04/2026

You know (because they kept moaning about it) that they had to make the rules up as they went, because no-one took the time to help them think through the details, the edge cases, the legal implications of mis-selling...

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 17/04/2026

Now imagine you're buying a car. The nice car salesperson is walking you through your finance options. And you happen to know that your nephew, a junior developer, had built the calculator.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 17/04/2026

Imagine you're a junior developer and your boss asks you to "build a car finance calculator" You, the junior, don't know the rules, moving parts, how to calculate finance based on deposits, depreciation, interest rates etc. But, keen to impress, you give it a go.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 17/04/2026

Or perhaps you're trying to figure out how to make use of AI without losing control of quality, security. Are you concerned about AI eroding your team's skills? I imagine it's tough leading engineering teams with all this noise about AI right now.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 17/04/2026

For the engineering team leaders out there - how are you tackling the adoption of AI within your team? Maybe you've thrown some Claude/Copilot licenses at them and are hoping they can figure it out.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 16/04/2026

How often do you find yourself asking AI to commit and push, instead of switching to your IDE to click the button? Asking for a friend.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 16/04/2026

Still not 100% though - don't let it convince you otherwise!

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 16/04/2026

Give the AI examples like this, have it write them up as unit tests (ideally first, without assuming any knowledge of the implementation details) and I'm finding AI is much more dependable as a coding partner.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 16/04/2026

To arrive at those up front tests I took time to think through what I was trying to build, and defined examples for the key logic.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 16/04/2026

1) writing code that meets the requirement in the first place 2) catching regressions as the LLM later goes on to make further changes But there's a third, subtle benefit to.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 16/04/2026

Let's be honest, as developers we've known the value of tests for a long time, doesn't mean we've always written them. But in the last few weeks I've made sure to get AI to write tests first, before implementing, and in most cases it's been much better in two key regards.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 16/04/2026

Here's a quick write-up about the prompt and specific example I used to sharpen my refactoring skills. jonhilton.net/ai-assisted-...

jonhilton.net

Use AI to help YOU refactor your code

AI as a thinking partner > AI as a code generator

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 16/04/2026

Most recently asking it to walk me through a 'messy component' and help me figure out which parts to refactor (and why). As a learning tool, which can adapt to your specific scenario, I don't think it can be beat.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 16/04/2026

Everyone knows AI can generate code, but what if that isn't even its best party trick? I've found the most useful and productive sessions I've had are those where I get AI to help me do the work.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 13/04/2026

"brilliant for the right problems, absolute quicksand for the wrong ones" May have to steal that line, sums it up perfectly :)

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 13/04/2026

Indeed. That's not to say there aren't times it works well, but there are also plenty of times when it really doesn't!

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 13/04/2026

AI coding risks having us all spin around in circles doing more work than ever, while simultaneously failing to make progress towards our goals. Hell, half the time we don't even know what those goals are! Beware AI doesn't turn you into a busy fool.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 10/04/2026

Instead I needed to use the tools I already had, and run some experiments around building better habits. Building stuff won't fix your habits, or your processes, however shiny the tools you use, or the solution you end up with.

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Jon Hilton @jonhilton.net · 10/04/2026

Here's a more effective approach. Spend time reflecting on the problem, your goals, and coming up with theories on how you could address those problems to meet your goals. I've started doing this of late, and every time I've tried it, the answer wasn't to build software.

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