MadMode

Generative AI can definitely be a productivity booster... "I'm kinda scared of my python site builder now," I wrote way back in 2016. I've been sort of stuck since then.

Then I learned about aider, "pair programming in your terminal". It took just 2 and 1/2 hrs to re-created the features of my blog with modern JavaScript tooling.

After setting up billing, we start start it with aider --sonnet. Then literally type Create an 11ty blog called MadMode with the subtitle "Dan Connolly's hacking notebook". And whoosh:

Not only that, but aider makes a git commit out of what it did. No more copying and pasting code between the LLM chat window and your text editor.

• 2024-09-21 11:53 850441f feat: Create an 11ty blog called MadMode with the subtitle "Dan Connolly's hacking notebook"

Its first try had a bug. So I typed fix it. And it did.

• 2024-09-21 11:54 7fc1488 fix: resolve template render error in layout.njk

aider offers to run the command to start the site in dev mode, and I agreed. The initial site looks like this:

Retrofitting the file structure to my existing content is something that usually trips me up when trying to migrate to a different blog engine. It was pretty much automatic with these tools:

• 2024-09-21 11:57 44d680e feat: move the source of the posts to pages/YYYY

It borked the footer code now and then. I was about to give up in frustration, but since fix it generally works, I just moved on without worrying about it too much.

• 2024-09-21 12:03 d93752d fix: Remove Liquid escaping from copyright footer

Tags took a couple tries:

• 2024-09-21 12:07 152ff32 feat: Add 'writing' tag to first post
• 2024-09-21 12:09 804eb5a feat: Add navigation and improve layout

Between those two, I said I don't see the new "writing" tag. how do tags work in 11ty?

With an LLM, we don't have to settle for Lorem Ipsum. I made a make up a dozen posts going back several years wish, and lo...

• 2024-09-21 12:12 591e119 feat: Add a dozen new blog posts and update index page with archives

Next wish: under Recent Posts, each item should include the post summary. if the post has no explicit summary, use the 1st 135 characters

• 2024-09-21 12:35 5123baa feat: Add post summary to Recent Posts section

each post should show the date and tags at the bottom

• 2024-09-21 12:39 4a9cf7f feat: add date and tags to post layout

add a tag index; that is: a list of the tags, each linked to a list of all the posts with that tag

• 2024-09-21 12:42 46e57da feat: Add tag index pages

good. but can you change the url structure from /tags/foo/ to /search/label/foo/ ?

• 2024-09-21 12:43 f9dc1d0 feat: Change URL structure from /tags/foo/ to /search/label/foo/

good! now change the tags index from a list to a tag cloud; that is: tags with more posts are bigger

• 2024-09-21 12:45 45afb88 feat: Implement tag cloud in tags index

I did a little research to figure out which search library I wanted to use, and then asked it to add search using minisearch:

• 2024-09-21 13:08 4f8d01b feat: Add search functionality using MiniSearch

Then I started playing around with style:

• 2024-09-21 13:25 55e0f22 feat: use serif fonts
• 2024-09-21 13:27 26e7149 feat: Add blockquote styles with italics and large quotation mark
• 2024-09-21 14:21 6ae305a feat: Add laboratory notebook style to background

And finally:

• 2024-09-28 03:37 472793c feat: Move the Welcome section to the bottom and rename it to "About MadMode"

move-section-down.cast https://asciinema.org/a/678027

aider wrote 7% of its own code in the most recent release, it wrote 70% https://github.com/paul-gauthier/aider/releases/tag/v0.57.0

It can definitely make something good enough to criticize... not a finished product, but something that's close enough to go "no, not like that, but..." and now you have a better sense of what you do want.