Surviving AI World as a Stubborn Old Developer

If you are a stubborn old developer like me (25 y.o.) who doesn't like full AI driven development because of a long experience in the field (Web 7 Years) and writing systems from mind without even thinking but still wanting to use AI tools and doesn't want to be behind, I have some suggestions that I use daily in my workflow.

##Your own SKILL.MD

We old folks have some strict coding style that occured in multiple years thanks to writing code by hand, failing hard, refactoring systems in your free time or when needed and we want pretty code.

That's why I spent a day writing my own `SKILL.MD` file by having a reflective perspective into my habits of writing code and with Claude I made a highly detailed coding guide for my agent.

It's like `airbnb-eslint` but for Claude. It contains how it should format the code, how to extract props of react components, when to use switch and when to use lookup objects, if/else try/catch placements, calling functions with `void` keyword, using `.catch()` instead of try/catch. How variable naming should be, how enums should be used, doing early returns instead of if/else statements and list goes on an on....

I'm not going to share it here because it's big but you got the point.

##Quickly conclude if AI or You will do it faster.

I can use shortcuts and terminal commands easily, and I have reflexes that make my job easier than simply opening an AI agent and telling it what to do. Some easy code deduplication, or renaming a variable etc..

If you take more time than AI, it's time to create a detailed markdown content for the agent to follow. Instead of `fix this` or `line 180 gives error` simply give the agent what needs to be done. Think of it like coding in pure english, tell it how to make the coding structure, how to flow the data, what you do not want etc.

##Maybe inline suggestions are more than enough most of the time

I have Github Copilot subscription and Codex subscription (Claude is from the business yo.). The only reason why I keep paying for Github Copilot is the inline suggestion system. I love it, I love how it predicts what I'm going to do by the name of the variable or my last edit. For a stubborn old folk like me, this is more than enough most of the time.

##Boilerplating

This is where I love AI agents. I am a `create new project every week` developer and I love developing open source libraries which has 0 downloads. When I have a thing in my mind my first instinct is to go and start coding for DOPAMINE.... and that's the trap. Because later I get enough dopamine from it and move on to the next project.

Instead of writing code for a new project, I start a fressssshh markdown file and type my ideas, and then how files should be, how systems should work, and I even create TypeScript types for systems for agent to follow and then I let the agent code what I strictly detailed in the file.