Red Light Fever
Red light fever is the paralysis that hits the moment execution has to start — whether that's a guitar solo, a blank Word document, or day one on a new job site. This piece walks through why it happens, borrowing from Kevin O'Leary's signal-vs-noise framing and Jeff Bezos's decision-energy habits, and lays out three practical ways back to motion: build real practices instead of chasing hacks, reframe the problem instead of grinding through it, and chase the part of the work you actually love, even out of order.
The Lab Versus The Factory
In an era of AI-accelerated development, vibe coding, and relentless delivery pressure, the software industry is rediscovering a timeless truth: thinking and working are not the same thing. The lab — where ideas are challenged, designs are forged, and specifications are proven — is being collapsed into the factory floor in pursuit of speed. This article argues that the disciplines of the lab and the factory must be honored separately, and that the new age of AI tooling doesn't diminish that need — it amplifies it. Before you fire up your AI, you need to know what you are building and why. That's lab work. The factory's job is execution, not invention.
The Same Five Notes, But Endless Possibilities
This article is for the people who play those five notes and feel the itch to twist them, turn them, smear them over chord changes that have no business working — and make something that does. Follow the engineering principles. Honor the craft. Respect what came before. And then, when the time is right, when the problem calls for it, play like Jeff Beck: brush the blues and take it somewhere else entirely.
Finding ways to use the same guitar people have been using for 50 years to make sounds that no one has heard before is truly what gets me off.
Jeff BeckEric Clapton on Beck: “With Jeff, it’s all in his hands.”
Software development is changing fast. The people working hardest on those changes deserve to be heard, not boxed in. If you have the gift for taking five notes and finding the impossible in them — master that thing. Control it. Know when to use it. But never stop reaching for what the notes can become.
Thoughts on AI: Developers, Security, and the Data Center Question
Bottom line: AI's potential is extraordinary and the concerns it raises are real. Both deserve serious, honest attention.
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It’s different today.
The software and data development world is now different. Coding experience is growing irrelevant. It is not changed as much as things ended. Not everywhere all at once, but in some ways, 2025 is closer to the 1960s than 2026.
What matters now is that if you are a coder that you start taking AI seriously. Really seriously.
Can we talk?
If there's one thing I could add to this community, it would be this fundamental principle: Communication is key. We should engage in discussions, pose challenges, share insights, and provide encouragement. Let's move beyond mere commentary to meaningful communication.
Drawing inspiration from Jeff Atwood, the co-founder of Stack Exchange, and his book "Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code," which emphasizes the importance of effective communication among programmers, especially in written form.
Doing Yourself a Favor is OK
So do yourself a favor. Going back to my opening sentence, I stated that I am an environmental programmer. My environment includes many different things. Some big and some small. Some I bring with me to work, some I request from my employer, and some I create while I work. The quiet revolution in which the development inmates took over the castle has made all this possible.
The Real Untold Secret
The secret for developing on the IBMi is to do the same and forget about the platform and develop for the future. The IBMi development sphere is on fire right now. IBM is stoking that fire. The number one thing we can do now is to honor the past but stop living in it. Read that previous paragraph again. That is the untold secret of modernization.