iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

Using AI assistants with a simple prompt is like standing in front of 3rd graders and saying, “Let’s do an art project!” You have *no idea* what you’re going to get, other than boundless enthusiasm. Results will be all over the place.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

I want an anti-microwave on my kitchen counter where I can put things in, press a button, and *zap* things get colder.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

How do you know when you’re done with a project? If the project is good, the answer is: never. The best projects are idea factories. There’s always a next step.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

If your goal is to produce some particular end product—a website, an app, an open-source project on GitHub—the sooner you can make it look like that end product, the better. With AI, it's never been easier. Get an idea. Sketch with AI. Make a demo! 🧐💡🛠 tugtool.dev/journal/get-...

tugtool.dev

Get an idea. Sketch with AI. Make a demo.

Turning an abstract idea into a concrete demo has never been easier

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

“when working with AI, say precisely what you want to get exactly what you want” 👆 This idea came to me yesterday as I was thinking about how I collaborate with AI coding assistants, why I find myself so much more productive when working with them. tugtool.dev/journal/say-...

tugtool.dev

Say Precisely To Get Exactly

As a developer, I still need to say what I want... but now in prose rather than code

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

When I get a new idea, my adversary is the blank page, the empty file. So I get started. I put something down. Even if it’s bad. That’s OK. I can begin fixing it.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

when working with AI, say precisely what you want to get *exactly* what you want

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

I really like writing software. I can do it all day long. And so I do.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

These days, I'm working by myself... in the traditional sense. I don't have human teammates—but I *am* collaborating all the time with AI coding assistants. These models are not people. Yet, to get the best results out of them, I need to use *people manager* skills. tugtool.dev/journal/im-a...

tugtool.dev

I’m An AI Manager

Working with AI isn't like working with humans, except when it is

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

Look where I am! Don’t get any ideas though. Just visiting a friend.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

A great part of working at Apple when I did was that I absolutely wanted the products we were making. I always loved the Mac. Joining that first iPhone team was a dream. I *so wanted* that gadget! Now I’m working on a personal project. I’m focused on capturing that feeling. So far, so good.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

good projects spawn side projects

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

Do “real programmers” use AI to write code? I think so! tugtool.dev/journal/real...

tugtool.dev

Real Programmers

The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer (updated for AI)

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

My wife just turned this up this photo while going through some old boxes. Yes, that's me. Heh. I’ve been working with computers for a long time. Circa 1995?

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

Starting a software project involves so many things that have to get done before getting down to the actual work of developing the code itself: defining the scope and audience, coming up with good names… and putting up a website. I wrote a post on how I set up mine. tugtool.dev/journal/the-...

tugtool.dev

The Site Meta-Project

A story about making this website

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 17/01/2026

I’ve started a new project. It’s called Tug. The aim is to deliver better refactoring for AI coding assistants. It’s open-source, and I’ll be discussing all the work with lots of journal posts as I go. Hooray for new beginnings! tugtool.dev

tugtool.dev

TUG: Code refactoring for AI assistants

Code refactoring for AI

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Over the last year or so, I’ve made the biggest-ever change to the way I write software. I now code with AI assistance all the time. Here’s why. Here’s how. kocienda.micro.blog/2025/06/25/c...

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

We’ve been making great progress at Infactory, the company I co-founded last year. We help developers build natural language APIs over structured data: connect data sources, build query programs, and deploy them as REST endpoints. infactory.ai/developers

infactory.ai

Infactory AI

Infactory empowers enterprises to build trustworthy AI assistants, agents, and search tools. The Infactory platform connects your data sources, generates accurate queries, and gives enterprises comple...

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Reposted by Ken Kocienda

Julien Dorra @juliendorra.com · 09/04/2025

How do you solve a design challenge full of unknown unknowns? Jump back to 2005 and try the Blob Keyboard, @kocienda.bsky.social's first working prototype for the iPhone keyboard, created during a UX crisis.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

A robot garbage man who was never programmed to dream but does so anyway. #gpt4o

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

When I add big new features to code, I hack away wildly in my work branch. I'll often break other features. I don't care. I just want to see the new feature ASAP. Once I have that, I usually find it pretty easy to go back, fix any breakages, and neaten things up.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

There are “Esperanto” ideas, proposals which sound great, but are complex and impractical, and so they never take off. There also are “tweet” ideas, trivial things which don’t seem to do much at all, but are simple and appealing to everyone, and so they spread everywhere.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

I’ve been doing a bunch of coding over the past few days with claude-3.7-sonnet MAX in Agent mode in Cursor. It’s been amazing. It’s like having a junior dev who works fast, knows a lot for its experience level, gets a lot right (and a lot wrong too), but is always willing to go back and try again.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

I haven't written software for Apple platforms since 2020, but over the last few days, I've been working on an iOS demo app for a prospective customer. In an Xcode log message, I was unexpectedly greeted by an old friend: UIKeyboardLayoutStar. I wrote the first version of that class back in ~2008.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

I have a “software mindset”. When I think about ideas or look at systems, I imagine the abstractions, data, and algorithms I would need to write a relevant program, either to examine a topic, simulate a real-world thing, or actually implement some working code.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

It’s 6:30 AM. In my favorite Hawaiian spot. Already finished a leisurely breakfast. Beautiful view of the surf. Laptop opened. A wonderful day ahead of programming ahead of me, since that’s what I like to do best.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 26/12/2024

I do a lot of python programming these days, and sadly, there’s no consistency anywhere. Let’s take just one example, is it: len(foo), foo.len, foo.length, foo.len(), or foo.length()? I never know.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 26/12/2024

I enjoyed every day I worked with Apple ObjC frameworks. Once you learned the naming conventions, you could guess names even in new frameworks. It made it easy to think in that code.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

Merry Christmas to my internet friends. 🎄

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

There’s a fine line between software that’s supple and helpful without getting in your way and guessing wrong all the time, but great software comes along with you for the ride, and makes the ride a pleasure.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

We can, and probably should, take it for granted that all decent software gets the algorithms right. Getting the heuristics right is what makes software excellent. I wrote this about heuristics in my book.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

We applied Postel’s Law throughout the software for the first iPhone, and we described the concept in the ’949 patent under this title: Touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics. patents.google.com/patent/US747...

patents.google.com

US7479949B2 - Touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics - Google Patents

A computer-implemented method for use in conjunction with a computing device with a touch screen display comprises: detecting one or more finger contacts with the touch screen display, applying one or...

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

The best software gives what you want, not necessarily what you did. This is a corollary of the more general Robustness Principle, which I always refer to as Postel’s Law: “Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others.” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustn...

en.wikipedia.org

Robustness principle - Wikipedia

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

proud to be the first follower of @jeangordonkocienda.bsky.social, the best person I know ❤️

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Reposted by Ken Kocienda

infactory.bsky.social @infactory.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Pt 2 of @kocienda.bsky.social's podcast with Jerry Cuomo is here! Hear all about Ken's journey after Apple, thoughts on AI, & what he's up to now at Infactory www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-s_...

youtube.com

The Man Behind Autocorrect - Part Two

YouTube video by Jerry Cuomo

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

Two rules of software: 1. Add a level of indirection if the code doesn't do what you want. 2. If that didn't work, goto 1.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

I was on the Wild Ducks podcast with Jerry Cuomo talking about Apple and autocorrect. A fun conversation. Future episode on Infactory (my company) and AI will drop soon. open.spotify.com/episode/3IH8...

open.spotify.com

The Man Behind Autocorrect - Part One

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

Waymo is still super cool every time. Feels like magic.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

We’ve kept the Rancor out in the living room ever since. Around Christmas time, he gets a hat. Rancor Claus! He thinks you look delicious.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

In 2009, I bought this Rancor toy. We had this gingerbread house building contest, and I decided to make a monster movie tableau. I thought it came out great! I made a 1950s style monster movie poster for it too! I didn’t win. 😅

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

At Apple, I wrote a little declarative language to describe different keyboard layouts. It handled geometry, keyplanes, key actions, graphics, colors, etc. It was cool. I called it KBStar. I wonder if they still use it?

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

Of course, LLMs make this possible in a way that I didn’t think I would see in my lifetime. And while talking to the computer in English in amazing, and is a big part of what we’re trying to accomplish at Infactory (the company I started earlier this year), that’s not the same as programming.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

I’ve always loved writing little domain-specific computer languages. It’s fascinating to figure out the most economical way to say the thing you want the computer to do for you.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

Over the past two years, and at an accelerating rate over the past few months, I write software with the help of AI. I come up with the ideas, write the specs, and nudge things in the right direction. The AI does the drudgery of putting the bits in the right order for me to review and integrate.

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

I like it the most when the new software teaches me new things. Doing a lot of work with Polars lately. Nice software. pola.rs

pola.rs

Polars

DataFrames for the new era

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Ken Kocienda @kocienda.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

For me, the best programs to write are the ones where I know what I want to do in the big picture, but I’m not exactly sure how to accomplish the thing.

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