https://evalcode.com/Recent content on eval ( code )Hugo -- gohugo.ioenCopy, _right?_ :thinking_face:. All thoughts and opinions are my own. They do not represent my employer.Sun, 26 Apr 2026 08:15:00 -0600https://evalcode.com/handbook/templates/bug-report/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://evalcode.com/handbook/templates/bug-report/A bug report has one job: give someone enough info to reproduce the problem without asking follow-up questions.https://evalcode.com/handbook/story/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://evalcode.com/handbook/story/A relatable analogy that frames the rest of the handbook: expectations, estimation, negotiation, and what ‘done’ really means.https://evalcode.com/handbook/rituals/standups/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://evalcode.com/handbook/rituals/standups/A short daily check-in to surface blockers and keep the team focused on the same goal. Not a status report.https://evalcode.com/handbook/going-remote/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://evalcode.com/handbook/going-remote/Office habits break when you go remote. Here’s what to replace them with and why every other practice in this handbook depends on it.https://evalcode.com/handbook/templates/pull-requests/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://evalcode.com/handbook/templates/pull-requests/A PR description isn’t for you. It’s for the person reviewing your code. Make their job easy.https://evalcode.com/handbook/scoping/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://evalcode.com/handbook/scoping/How to break a problem into features that are small enough to deliver, clear enough to estimate, and valuable enough to justify the work.https://evalcode.com/handbook/rituals/planning/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://evalcode.com/handbook/rituals/planning/How to run a planning session that produces a clear, committed backlog with known decision makers.https://evalcode.com/handbook/daily-routine/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://evalcode.com/handbook/daily-routine/The project lead’s daily checklist for making sure the board reflects reality and nothing is quietly falling apart.https://evalcode.com/handbook/templates/feature-proposal/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://evalcode.com/handbook/templates/feature-proposal/Force yourself to articulate the problem before jumping to a solution. The proposal starts with the problem.https://evalcode.com/handbook/rituals/retrospectives/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://evalcode.com/handbook/rituals/retrospectives/The team’s primary self-improvement mechanism. Useless without action items; powerful with them.https://evalcode.com/handbook/rituals/estimating/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://evalcode.com/handbook/rituals/estimating/A simple 0-3 pointing scale, how to run a session, and why you’re measuring confidence not hours.https://evalcode.com/handbook/templates/story/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://evalcode.com/handbook/templates/story/The fundamental unit of work on the board. What the team is building, why it matters, and how to verify it’s done.https://evalcode.com/handbook/project-board/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://evalcode.com/handbook/project-board/The board should answer ‘what are you working on?’ in 30 seconds. Here’s how to set it up and keep it honest.https://evalcode.com/posts/if-you-stop-hiring-juniors-your-seniors-own-you/Sun, 26 Apr 2026 08:15:00 -0600https://evalcode.com/posts/if-you-stop-hiring-juniors-your-seniors-own-you/The ‘AI replaces junior engineers’ argument ignores basic economics. Junior employees aren’t just cheap labor. They’re salary insurance, pipeline protection, and the only hedge companies have against a senior workforce that increasingly doesn’t need the job.https://evalcode.com/posts/the-best-engineers-read-the-room/Sun, 05 Apr 2026 12:13:00 -0600https://evalcode.com/posts/the-best-engineers-read-the-room/The best engineers know how to read the room. This is not really an engineering problem, it’s a people problem. The engineers people trust most are the ones who know when to reassure, when to stay quiet, and how to make others feel understood.https://evalcode.com/posts/moores-law-wont-set-your-career-timeline/Mon, 30 Mar 2026 09:00:00 -0600https://evalcode.com/posts/moores-law-wont-set-your-career-timeline/Everyone assumes AI will replace most jobs within a year. The technology might be ready, but the economics aren’t. Data centers, power grids, and component costs don’t follow Moore’s Law. When demand outstrips infrastructure, token prices go up, and companies start doing the math on AI versus people.https://evalcode.com/posts/the-hardest-skill-in-ai-assisted-development-is-knowing-when-to-stop/Tue, 24 Mar 2026 21:00:00 +0000https://evalcode.com/posts/the-hardest-skill-in-ai-assisted-development-is-knowing-when-to-stop/AI makes ‘one more prompt’ irresistible. The next feature is always ten minutes away. The hardest engineering skill in the age of AI isn’t building. It’s deciding when to ship.https://evalcode.com/posts/agile-is-bending-not-breaking-in-the-age-of-ai/Mon, 16 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0000https://evalcode.com/posts/agile-is-bending-not-breaking-in-the-age-of-ai/AI makes writing code so cheap that iterative enhancement stops making sense. Instead of refining small slices, teams are regenerating entire features and iterating on the whole thing. Agile isn’t dead, but its assumptions are bending hard.https://evalcode.com/posts/auth-lessons-from-building-warden/Mon, 09 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0000https://evalcode.com/posts/auth-lessons-from-building-warden/After maintaining an authentication library with 125 million downloads for over a decade, here’s what I learned about the real cost of auth: it’s not the build, it’s the maintenance nobody plans for. And no, an AI agent monitoring your dependencies isn’t the answer.https://evalcode.com/posts/ai-exposed-your-process-debt/Tue, 03 Mar 2026 15:00:00 +0000https://evalcode.com/posts/ai-exposed-your-process-debt/AI made code cheap. The bottleneck was never the code. It was scoping, estimation, and communication, the skills teams treated as optional for years. That bet no longer pays off.https://evalcode.com/posts/ruby-class-methods-are-better-than-constants/Thu, 19 Nov 2020 00:50:11 +0000https://evalcode.com/posts/ruby-class-methods-are-better-than-constants/Constants feel clean until six files break when you rename a hash key. Class methods give you the same performance with an API boundary that survives refactoring.https://evalcode.com/posts/serving-universal-links-app-links-from-phoenix/Tue, 18 Jun 2019 15:24:51 +0000https://evalcode.com/posts/serving-universal-links-app-links-from-phoenix/Deep linking looks simple until it breaks in production because three teams own different pieces of it. Here’s the Phoenix server-side setup, including the content-type gotcha that will cost you an afternoon.https://evalcode.com/posts/expose-phoenix-app-via-free-ngrok/Thu, 13 Jun 2019 15:34:19 +0000https://evalcode.com/posts/expose-phoenix-app-via-free-ngrok/A Makefile trick that auto-populates the ngrok hostname into your Phoenix dev server. Small dev-environment friction compounds across a team faster than you’d expect.https://evalcode.com/posts/going-remote/Fri, 01 Mar 2019 22:14:31 +0000https://evalcode.com/posts/going-remote/The habits that made you successful in an office will hurt you when you go remote. Here’s how to replace observational communication with written communication.https://evalcode.com/posts/extending-rails-partials-using-local_assigns/Fri, 14 Jul 2017 00:29:27 +0000https://evalcode.com/posts/extending-rails-partials-using-local_assigns/Rails partials rot fast once multiple views depend on them. local_assigns is a forgotten built-in that handles optional variables without the nil-guard sprawl.https://evalcode.com/posts/server-side-elm-with-phoenix/Mon, 04 Jan 2016 03:34:04 +0000https://evalcode.com/posts/server-side-elm-with-phoenix/Server-side render Elm applications with Phoenix using a STDIO-based IO server, similar to the React approach.https://evalcode.com/posts/render-react-with-phoenix/Sat, 02 Jan 2016 14:17:05 +0000https://evalcode.com/posts/render-react-with-phoenix/Server-side render React components with Phoenix using react-stdio and OTP for isomorphic Elixir applications.https://evalcode.com/posts/simple-guardian-multiple-sessions/Wed, 30 Dec 2015 02:49:00 +0000https://evalcode.com/posts/simple-guardian-multiple-sessions/Use Guardian to manage multiple browser sessions in your Phoenix app, such as separate user and admin logins.https://evalcode.com/posts/simple-guardian-permissions/Tue, 29 Dec 2015 13:25:39 +0000https://evalcode.com/posts/simple-guardian-permissions/Embed permissions into JWT tokens using Guardian for fine-grained authorization in your Phoenix application.https://evalcode.com/posts/simple-guardian-api-authentication/Tue, 22 Dec 2015 03:54:02 +0000https://evalcode.com/posts/simple-guardian-api-authentication/Set up API authentication with Guardian in your Phoenix application using JWT tokens.https://evalcode.com/posts/simple-guardian/Tue, 22 Dec 2015 03:20:57 +0000https://evalcode.com/posts/simple-guardian/A straightforward guide to setting up browser authentication in your Phoenix application using Guardian.https://evalcode.com/about/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://evalcode.com/about/Serial founding engineer who has built teams from zero to exit at multiple companies. Senior Staff Engineer at Shopify. More than a decade of remote engineering leadership.