I survey the rise of AI coding tools, from ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot to open source ecosystems, alongside skeptic concerns about training data, code quality, model collapse, and code exfiltration. I explain why these assistants suit my situation as an experienced developer new to modern languages, and trace my journey from paid Copilot to the free Codium and finally to running local models via Ollama and the Continue VSCode extension to keep client code private...
A short walkthrough of fixing the default VS Code file icons in the explorer view. I explain how to find the File Icon Theme option via the command palette, why a vanilla install requires installing additional themes from the marketplace, and how I settled on the popular VS Code Icons theme...
A step-by-step walkthrough of my routine for starting new Node/Express SSR web projects with HTMX, covering directory setup, npm and git initialization, GitHub repo creation, and my ongoing dilemma about committing htmx.min.js versus using a CDN. In the second half, I describe an Express starter skeleton with EJS views and partials, basic routing with 404 handling, and some starter CSS...
