My Notes on Three Years of Coding with AI
A non-hype version of what daily AI-assisted coding actually looks like after three years, written like a conversation over coffee.
Who is Mike Zornek?
Hello! My name is Mike Zornek. I describe myself as both a developer and teacher, and I've been building digital products for over 25 years.
From the suburbs of Philadelphia, I code in Elixir . When I am not coding, I enjoy watching Phillies baseball and playing video games (mostly laid-back simulations and RPGs).
Start Here
New here? Here are some quality posts to get you started.
Personal Elixir Code Aesthetics
A tour of some small personal choices behind clean, readable Elixir code I strive for.
Phoenix LiveView: Presenting DateTime in User's Time Zone
A concrete walk through a real Phoenix problem: showing timestamps in each reader's own time zone.
What is Local-first Software?
Why data ownership and offline-friendly software matter to me, and where local-first is heading. It's a problem space I'm digging into right now.
My Standup Format
The simple async standup format I've leaned on for years to keep a team honest, human, and unblocked.
Recent Blog Posts
One Pipe, One User Story: The Case for phoenix_test
Why phoenix_test makes Phoenix feature tests read better and fail more usefully.
Building LocalCents: A Local-first Expense Tracker with Automerge CRDTs
An educational side project: a local-first expense tracker built with Automerge CRDTs in Elixir, Phoenix, and Tauri, plus how I surface sync conflicts.
Who Fills the Sprint? My 45/45/10 Split
Every sprint is a tug-of-war between the roadmap and the work that keeps the lights on. Here is the 45/45/10 split I plan against, and why.
Celebrating New Journaling Habits
A couple of new habits have stuck: weekly planning, and a signal log to track where my consulting outreach lands.
An Agent Skill for Updating Elixir Dependencies
What agent skills are, and a walkthrough of the one I lean on to update Elixir dependencies and open a documented pull request.
Shimming Your Way Off a Dead Elixir Dependency
An abandoned dependency was blocking a major upgrade I needed. Here are the two ways I retire one, and when a shim beats a big-bang rewrite.
Guarding Against AI Drift: My Automated Elixir Quality Checks
I have hardened LocalCents with more automated Elixir quality checks than I have ever run. The whole guardrail setup, wired in a real repo.