About

Code with Guardrails is a personal project that shares a journey in vibe coding.  I am sorry to say that for those who believe humans can code better, they can not. Period! Yet, AI can not code without a human. Vibecoding is not about telling AI to code and walking away. Vibecoding is a change in mindset, and there is a learning curve.

Yes, the AI can write code faster, with fewer typos, and catch things you most likely would not. But it will miss things you will catch, and it will do things if you do not guide it properly.

I'm Don, and I retired after a career in IT support, from networking to training and desktop support. I did cybersecurity before it had a name. 

One of my bucket lists all that time was to learn to code. I took classes and dabbled, but it never really stuck, and that was because I never had the time nor would I dedicate the time to do it. Things like family, career, travel, and life always took priority.

In my post-retirement years, I have a bit more time, and I started to dabble in AI. If you are in IT or a former IT professional, you know that it never leaves you.  After learning the basics of AI, such as prompts, I started applying them to simple things, and before I knew it, a year ago I started having AI do some coding for me.  A year later, I realized how good it is, but also how to avoid many of the pitfalls that come up. I know how to avoid them because I fell into them and had to dig my way out. 

The best thing I heard about coding with AI was to have guardrails. Hence the name of the blog. This blog is partly about my journey but also to relay what I have learned and what one should know.

Vibe: coding to most who do not code think it's cheating; it's not. It's using something that works very well if guided properly. Remember, spell check; it was cheating, but now it's commonplace. Yes, I am that old.

The mindset of coders will have to change if it has not already. I imagine most of it has already, but for those who do not code for a living and want to code as a hobby and a side gig, AI opens a door. That door can slam in your face if you don't do it right, but if you do, that door does open.

In the last year, I have published 4 apps, basic apps, such as extensions for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. I started off with more complex ideas, but as I tripped and fell, I learned to back off and start with simpler ideas.  I will be publishing my first official macOS app in the next week. I hope this does not stop.  All for things like extensions. Each of them has been accepted on the various platforms and approved. Are they good? I like to think so, but what I do know is that Apple, Google, and Mozilla did not find anything terribly wrong with them and allowed publication.

In short, the main focus of this blog is to express the guardrails I have learned. Using AI to code is good if you understand you are not a coder, but a manager of a very knowledgeable coder who has absolutely no understanding.  AI has vast amounts of resources and knowledge but absolutely no understanding.

What you'll find here: hands-on actual write-ups from my own projects, practical guardrail techniques you can adopt today, and honest assessments of tools as they evolve. No hype, no doom — just what happens when you ship real code with AI in the loop.

New posts weekly. If you build software with AI tools — or you're skeptical of people who do — you're in the right place.

Don

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